
Glass J-uB /6S3- 
Book X^ 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



THE 



JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 
IDEA 



BY 



JOSEPH K. VAN DENBURG, Th.D. 

Teachers College, Columbia University, 1911 




NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

1922 



LB/4S.3 
,V'3 



COPYRIGHT, 1922, 
BY 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 



APR -b 1922 



PRINTED IN U. S. A. 

©CU661161 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 




PAGE 


A. 


Introduction 


3 


I. 


The Junior High School Idea 


8 


II. 


The Use of Prognostic Tests in Junior High 






School Administration 


21 


III. 


Speed Grouping in the Junior High School 


36 


IV. 


Choosing the Course of Study 


5g 


V. 


General Method in the Junior High School 




- Part I. — Rationalism 


77 




Part II. — Articulation 


85 


VI. 


English in the Junior High School 


96 


VII. 


General Introductory Mathematics 


125 


VIII. 


Introductory Foreign Language 


139 


IX. 


General Introductory Science. 


158 


X. 


Introductory Social Science 


173 


XI. 


Appreciation of Art in the Junior High School 


187 


XII. 


Physical Training, Bodily Health and Charac- 






ter Building . 


199 


XIII. 


Teaching Pupils to Study Alone 


220 


-XIV. 


The Project Method of Instruction in the 






Junior High School 


223 


XV. 


The Socialized Recitation in the Junior High 






School 


245 


XVI. 


Field Work in All Junior High School Subjects 






Part I. — Value of Field Work 


259 




Part 11. — Practical Details of Field Study. 


274 


XVII. 


Written Examinations and Recognition Tests. 


284 


XVIII. 


Relative Ratings and Pupils' Report Cards . . . 


310 


XIX. 


Pupil Self-Government 


327 


XX. 


Teacher Participation in Junior High School 






Administration 


354 




Appendix ^-r-r. 


379 




Bibliography . . 


413 




Index . . . 


419 



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in 2011 with funding from 
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THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 



THE 

JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

CHAPTER A 
INTRODUCTION 

It is said that any one really wishing to get the point of 
view of any serious study, whether it be in text-book 
form or not, should study the preface and the table of 
contents carefully, before beginning the first chapter. 
Most of us, however, are too impatient to begin the book 
we have selected to read, and to get directly to the story 
or explanation that concerns us, to be as careful in these 
matters as the experts tell us we should. 

Because most of us may prefer the direct attack in this 
discussion of the purposes and practices of modern junior 
high school, we shall include in this, our first chapter, 
such preface or introduction as may be necessary. 

At Speyer Experimental Junior High School in New 

York City, where the aims and practices that we shall 
discuss have been or are being worked out, we have a 
peculiarly managed school. The principal and teachers 
are paid by the City of New York as in all other public 
schools. The educational direction of the school, the 
selection of the program of studies and the various 
courses, however, have been under the immediate 
supervision of Teachers College, Columbia University, 
with Professor Thomas H. Briggs as its representative 
in the field. Teachers College owns the Speyer build- 
ing, the gift of Mr. James Speyer of New York City. 

3 



4 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

Speyer School therefore has been developed and is 
developing as an experimental school where, under Pro- 
fessor Briggs' direction, the principal and teachers have 
been wholly free to work out such administrative meth- 
ods and such courses of study as seemed best fitted to se- 
cure the results desired. 

The six hundred pupils have been public school boys 
(and for a time girls also) selected from some twenty 
neighboring elementary schools because of their prom- 
ise of school success. On the whole, the pupils have 
been above the average New York City boys of their age 
in general intelligence. 

The twenty teachers too are above the average, hav- 
ing been selected for initiative, knowledge of subject 
matter, a willingness to try eagerly and honestly such in- 
novations as have been proposed, and above all, for 
that professional spirit that leads them to consider first 
most carefully the reasons why a thing should be done 
at all, and then being satisfied on that point to do that 
thing as well as in them lies. 

The general aim of Speyer School as stated by Pro- 
fessor Briggs and accepted by the faculty and pupils of 
the school has been: 

First : " To teach pupils to do better tfyose desir- 
able activities that they will do anyway and to teach 
these by means of material in itself worth while." 

Second, " To reveal higher types of activities and 
to make these both desired and, to an extent, 
possible." 

For the sake of our discussions that follow, let us ac- 
cept this aim and keep it more or less in mind in all 
that we are to read over, for it may help us to appreci- 
ate a point of view that may appear more or less fre- 



INTRODUCTION 5 

quently in the chapters that follow. It may help us 
also when later we come to a discussion of the actual 
class room material in the five or more subjects of study 
or lines of work, as English, mathematics, etc., etc., if 
we remember that here we shall not attempt to consider 
all the well known and accepted aims for each subject, 
but rather to select for emphasis only the predominant 
aim or aims that we may agree should characterize this 
work in a modern junior high school, whether those aims 
be new or old. 

With the exception of some parts of a single chapter 
(the one on Introductory Social Science) , all that follows 
is not simply theory, but rather theory applied to the ac- 
tual administration and operation of the school and class 
room work. With that single exception (which we hope 
will not long continue as such) all that we shall discuss 
is either actually being accomplished or at least is being 
honestly attempted in the various classes of Speyer. 
School. If, as in the case with Manual Training (shop 
work) for boys and Domestic Science (cooking and sew- 
ing) for girls, a chapter is conspicuous by its absence, it 
is because our physical limitations at Speyer School — a 
small building, greatly overcrowded — prevent us from 
working put our theories in practice. Similarly in the 
case of Commercial Work, where the number of students 
electing this course of study is too small to permit of 
profitable experimentation, at Speyer School, all discus- 
sion is omitted. 

If these omissions seem to weaken our discussion, they 
nevertheless may be admitted to strengthen it too by en- 
tirely eliminating a discussion of "What might be done" 
as contrasted with what is being done. Therefore in all 
our work we shall try to keep our feet continuously on 
the solid ground of actual practice, believing that, on the 



6 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

whole, this method will make our discussions of more 
lasting value. 

Let it be understood, however, that at Speyer School we 
are working, even with all our freedom, under limitations 
of many kinds depending upon equipment, frequent 
changes in our teaching staff, difficulties in securing suit- 
able text-books, etc., etc., — just such limitations as 
hamper the work of many other schools. We therefore 
suffer from no misconceptions as to our perfection, nor 
have we been able to accomplish all that we might have 
wished. We have had to temporize over and over again 
in order to meet conditions that actually exist. 

And yet the various principles as they are developed in 
this book will not be academic theories, but rather the 
statement of our accepted aims now followed in all our 
Speyer School work. So far as our limitations permit 
we are working out in actual daily practice the type of 
work this book portrays. 

In the arrangement of the book itself, the author has 
profited by many helpful criticisms made by Professor 
Thomas H. Briggs of Teachers College, New York, and 
by Dr. Thomas W. Gosling, State Supervisor of Second- 
ary Education, Madison, Wisconsin. To these gentle- 
men the reader, as well as the author, is greatly indebted. 

Finally, we must not forget that at our present stage of 
educative progress we have almost as many kinds of jun- 
ior high schools as we have individual principals. This is 
far from being a * condition for which any apology is 
needed. On the contrary, if each school be considered for 
a time an experiment station for finding the best way for 
ministering to the needs of the pupils of its locality, we 
have a high degree of probability that the related, 
the classified, total experiences of these various schools 
will enable us in the not very far distant future to 



INTRODUCTION 7 

reach conclusions as to aim and content far more ac- 
curate and far more valuable than those attainable by 
any small central group which may prescribe uniform 
courses at this time. 

May it be some years before any one shall be permitted 
to say, "This at last is a junior high school, just this 
and nothing else — definite in curriculum, definite in 
subjects of study, fixed now for a generation at least." 
For the present, let us consider the untold possibilities for 
good that may result if we permit our youngest child the 
unconventionalities characteristic of childhood and 
growth, glorying in, rather than grieving over, his in- 
consistencies and the length of his formative period. 

1. How is Speyer School conducted? 

2. Is there a possibility of conducting a similar experimental 

school in my own school system? 

3. What educational institution could be called upon to 

assist if my board of education would consent to such 
joint control? 

4. What are the particular qualifications to be sought in the 

principal and teachers of a junior high school? 

5. W T hat is Professor Briggs' definition of the educational 

purpose of a junior high school? 

6. How does this definition differ from others that have 

been given? 

7. What is meant by "those desirable activities" that our 

pupils will pursue anyway? 

8. What is the meaning of "material in itself worth while"? 

9. What "higher types" of activities may the junior high 

school reveal? 
10. Why will discussions of work in Manual Training and 
in Commercial Studies be omitted from this book? 



CHAPTER I 

THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

The school superintendent of a large and prosperous 
suburban district recently visited one of New York's most 
successful junior high schools for the purpose of gathering 
material to use in arguing against the advisability of 
initiating any such innovation in the school system he 
supervised. It appeared that the school, board of his city 
had suggested the possibility of opening this type • of 
school, but the superintendent, with a large system splen- 
didly organized, running smoothly and efficiently, looked 
askance upon any innovation that might, he feared, de- 
stroy the organization he had so carefully built up. How- 
ever, only one morning spent in visiting the junior high 
school in question was necessary to convince this man 
that the new type of school, however incomplete in its 
present development, would still be of distinct value to 
any system. As a result of this one visit the superinten- 
dent concerned became an enthusiastic convert to the 
junior high school idea. 

In many cases it must be admitted the demand for 
junior high schools comes from other than educational 
reasons. It may be that the least worthy of these de- 
mands comes from the school boards that wish junior 
high schools introduced in their school system simply 
because they appear to be coming into style, or because | 
they have heard that a rival city was putting them in 
operation. A more forceful demand comes from the 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 9 

school board that believes it possible to save money by 
educating a large fraction of their present high school 
population in elementary school buildings. 

The growing demand by American parents everywhere 
for increased opportunities in secondary school educa-, 
tion for their children has taxed all existing high schools \ 
to their utmost. To_^uild new high schools (expensive 
buildings even when most economically built) would re- 
quire that relatively high sums would have to be raised 
by taxation. • • 

A study of the pupils enrolled in our American high 
schools has shown that nearly half of all our high school 
pupils are found in the first high school, or ninth school 
year. If only these ninth year pupils could be held one 
year more m the elementary schools, it has been argued, 
then we would need not much more than half as great 
accommodations to house the remainder in high school 
buildings. In this way, after subtracting the ninth year 
pupils, one high school building could be made to do the 
work which under the old plan required two buildings. 

Furthermore, high school teachers are generally paid 
better annual salaries than are paid to elementary school 
teachers. Nearly as many high school teachers are re- 
quired to teach ninth year pupils today as are required 
to teach all the remaining pupils of the tenth, eleventh, 
and twelfth school years. If therefore, we could have 
these ninth year pupils taught and supervised by persons 
paid on a lower salary schedule, a decided saving in sal- 
aries could be added to the saving in school building con- 
struction. 

However commendable may be the effort to serve the 
taxpayer's pocketbook, such a change can only be made 
at the expense of the school population. Slowly but surely 
the quality of the instruction in the lower school will dete- 



10 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

riorate if a salary distinction is maintained, and while a 
saving in money is secured a loss in education is inevi- 
table. Where junior high schools have been longer in 
operation, as in the Middle West, it has been found nec- 
essary to put the junior and senior high school teachers 
on an equal scholarship and salary basis. In the East 
it is fair to assume that there will be ultimately the same 
equality. 

Perhaps the best picture of the situation toward which 
we are moving is given by Supt. Gosling, Supervisor of 
junior high schools in Wisconsin, who in his book on 
"Selection and Training of Teachers for Junior High 
Schools" is quoted by Briggs as saying: 

"In the meantime the tendency manifest in some places to 
establish a salary schedule that is intermediate between the 
schedule of the elementary school and that of the senior high 
school is to be resisted strongly, because it not only fails to 
recognize the importance of the junior high school and the 
significant contributions of its teachers to the development 
of a difficult piece of work, but also it strikes at. the stability 
of the new institution by the subtle suggestion to teachers that 
they may regard their position merely as a stepping-stone to 
the safe berth and the higher salary which the senior high 
school offers. In other words, the intermediate salary created 
a condition of unstable equilibrium, whereas fixedness, firmly 
based in high purposes persistently followed, is needed to de- 
velop the junior high school up to the full measure of its 
possibilities." 

Supt. Gosling in his address to the Intermediate School 
Association of New York City, expressed his firm con- 
viction that sooner or later to save the junior high schools 
for their special work the Eastern states would be obliged 
to follow the lead of Wisconsin and pay the same salaries 
in the junior and senior high schools. 

The junior high school is not a money saving device, 
save possibly during the earlier years of its inception, 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 11 

though even then the increased cost of equipping these 
schools easily outweighs their savings in teaehers' salaries 
at least. 

The truly educational demands for the initiation of 
junior high schools come from a desire to lessen or abol- 
ish the loss of power that seems inevitable between 
the old style elementary and old style high school. In 
the language of the automobile engineer the two older 
types (the elementary schools and the high schools) need 
to be united by a flexible coupling or universal joint 
rather than by a rigid shaft. 

It is worth while for us to consider the situation as it 
exists in most of our Eastern school systems today. 

The greatest contrast between the two older types of 
schools is found not, as one might assume, in their 
courses of study, but rather in their educational point 
of view. If we hesitate to accept this diagnosis of the 
essential difference a further examination of the facts 
may convince us. 

In most of our elementary schools with an eighth year 
course, the seventh year practically completes the ad- 
vance work — indeed a large part of this year's work is 
the review of the earlier grades. The eighth year is still 
more largely a reviewing year and the last half of the 
eighth year, just before graduation, is almost entirely 
given to review. Habit, tradition, printed "requirements 
for graduation" have all combined to make the eighth 
school year largely an end in itself, that end being "grad- 
uation" without any particular reference to the pupil's 
ability or fitness to make progress in any line once "grad- 
uation" is secured. It has been assumed that if a pupil 
knew enough "to graduate" he must of necessity know 
enough to continue his education in high school or to make 
a successful beginning as embryo artisan or tradesman. 



12 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

However, the average elementary school has never 
taken any high degree of interest in the success of its pu- 
pils in doing the work that lay ahead of them after grad- 
uation. The one and only question was "graduation" — 
after that the deluge, if such must be. In any event their 
hands were clean — had not their pupils passed the 
exacting graduation examinations — (Here are the exam- 
mination questions and the answer papers to prove it) ? 
In support of this position it is frequently contended that 
the elementary school is designed to provide "the tools 
of learning." When its pupils are so provided the elemen- 
tary school has fulfilled its mission and may rest content. 

Without undertaking to argue against this contention 
we might be tempted to ask if it is still reasonable to 
require the elementary school not merely to provide 
the tools of learning, but to give some attention to their 
probable use, after "graduation" is attained. However, 
when we consider the weight of tradition which binds 
teachers and superintendents to the custom of years, it 
becomes more reasonable to assume that the creation of 
a new type of school to take over the work of the seventh 
and eighth school years will be an easier task than will 
be the conversion of the established schools from their 
habit of several generations. For so many years the 
higher grades of the elementary schools have been facing 
backward, that it seems an impossibility for any one to 
compel them to about face and look ahead. Rather than 
to attempt to convert the old type of elementary school 
can we not more easily provide a new type of school that 
faces front, whose concern is greater on the question of 
what its pupils will do than it is upon the question of 
what they have done? Would it not be helpful to us to 
have new schools whose interest was centered in help- 
ing its pupils to do better the things ahead of them rather 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 13 

than in drilling its pupils upon what lay behind? To be 
sure in many cases success in the work ahead will depend 
upon success in holding in mind much that has been pre- 
viously covered. Yet, when we examine the facts, the 
amount of such necessary preliminary information is, af- 
ter all, astonishingly small. To read, to write, to compute 
arithmetically — to have some introductory knowledge 
of the globe and its inhabitants, may well be considered 
absolutely essential to successful entry into even the 
simplest lines of human endeavor. But with the com- 
pletion of the sixth school year we have covered at 
least once most of the information that is indisputably 
essential from the standpoint of past performance. Is 
this not a good point at which to begin to give less 
attention to what we have done and more to what we 
can do? 

Rather than to remodel our seventh and eighth years 
(an almost impossible task, we must admit) is it not 
easier for us to begin our seventh year with a clean 
slate and to build up as we progress a course of study, 
whether it be new or old, which is designed for the one 
great purpose of better fitting those who follow it to do 
better the work in school, or out, that lies just ahead? 

If thus far we are in agreement, we have stated one of 
the fundamental reasons for adopting the junior high 
school idea. 

A second fundamental reason arises from the situation 
in which our present elementary school graduate usually 
finds himself after "graduation," but before he actually 
enters any secondary school. Our pupil h?s now finished 
by "graduation" eight years of school work. This work 
has been for his entire school life uniform, prescribed, 
inevitable. Up to this point any choice as to the sub- 
ject-matter to be studied has been wholly, or almost 



14 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

wholly, denied. From the situation of blindfolded 
obedience to a prescribed course of study the pupil sud- 
denly is unbandaged in the bright light of a wide range 
of choice in the school work he may next undertake. In 
many school systems the pupil must, if he continue his 
education, at once select one of the four or five high 
school courses that lie just ahead. These courses, vari- 
ously designated as General, Scientific, Technical, Vo- 
cational (Trade), Commercial and by other names, 
differ decidedly among themselves in purpose and in in- 
struction. To be sure the pupil has through possible 
acquaintance with high school boys, or through the 
eleventh hour explanation of his former elementary school 
principal, some vague idea of the nature and purpose of 
the various high school courses. However, he is on the 
whole densely ignorant of his own aptitudes and is with- 
out any trustworthy knowledge of himself on which to 
base his necessarily immediate selection. There has been 
no effort on the part of his school work or his school 
teachers to lead him gradually to a wise choice. He has 
not been given any glimpse of the work ahead — he only 
knows that, in the main, his new work will be different 
from that he has been following in the elementary school, 
how different, in subject-matter and method, he will soon 
learn to his extreme surprise. 

Students of education have long felt that there was 
need for such a course of study in the seventh and 
eighth school years as might train pupils of those years 
to make a less random choice of the course they would 
pursue in the ninth and succeeding school years. The 
only method by which we have as yet felt sure a pupil 
could find his own capacities has been the method of trial 
and error — a faulty method at best, but a tremendously 
costly one when an error of choice has usually meant the 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 15 

termination once and for all of that pupil's secondary 
school education. Yet in our American high schools, the 
country over, not more than one in five (more often not 
more than one in ten) completes the high school course of 
his election. On the whole, not half the pupils entering 
any high school complete even the work of the first two 
years. As a rule there are more high school pupils en- 
rolled in the first school year than can be counted in 
the three remaining years combined. Admitting that 
we should be in error in attributing this tremendous 
high school mortality entirely to the faulty choice of 
course, we still may be within the bounds of probabili- 
ties if we maintain that the snap judgment, forced from 
the elementary school graduate, is no mean factor in his 
subsequent elimination. An exhaustive study of high 
school eliminations in New York City made some years 
ago clearly established the fact that many, if not most, 
of the pupils who failed in high school did so not because 
they were unable to do their work, but because they were 
unwilling to do it. 

If we could only have a course of study for the seventh 
and eighth school years that made one of its chief aims 
training its pupils to find their own aptitudes, talents and 
preferences for further work and study, we would have a 
course of study unquestionably superior to the traditional 
seventh and eighth year work. While a school with 
such a new course would still have to employ to a large 
extent the old "trial and error" method, it would never- 
theless have the trials made under such favorable cir- 
cumstances that errors of choice could be corrected with 
a minumum of loss to the pupil himself. 

Under our subsequent discussion we shall see that the 
junior high school undertakes to furnish just this range 
of experience (without specialization or immediate choice 



16 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

of courses) that is necessary for each pupil, if he is to be 
given the slightest opportunity to make a reasonably safe 
selection of his further subjects of study. For our present 
purposes it is enough that we agree that it is both desira- 
ble and necessary in full justice to our present elementary 
pupils to give them somewhat extended school training in 
finding out what they may be able to do next, in school 
or out, with reasonable hopes of ultimate benefit to them- 
selves and to their life work, while at the same time we 
prevent our pupils from being forced to an early choice. 

Inasmuch as our new type of school has for its first aim 
preparing pupils to look ahead to the thing they will do 
next, it becomes easy to add as our second aim the train- 
ing of its pupils to choose more wisely what this next 
work shall be. 

The ideal junior high school is therefore a finding and 
a sorting school where pupils may, through actual expe- 
rience, be led to make a more rational selection of their 
senior high school work, or their occupation in the world 
of industry, than would be otherwise possible. The claims 
for recognition of such a school, could it be brought into 
existence, needs no further defense. 

The third situation in the education of American ado- 
lescents that demands correction arises from the treat- 
ment that most of our elementary graduates receive on 
first entering high school. The pupil whose attention has 
been held for years to repetition and review, who has been 
helped, prodded, cajoled and threatened into memorizing 
certain bits of information — not infrequently requiring 
two years to do the work of one — this pupil now enters 
high school where he is expected to attack new work 
largely on his own initiative and impelled, not so much by 
interest, as by a sense of duty. 

For years superintendents and principals have endeav- 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 17 

ored by all good means to make the entering high school 
year a more simple and natural introduction to further 
secondary education. It must be admitted that no stable 
and certainly no permanent success has attended their 
efforts no matter how earnest they may have been. For 
generations the high school has been the school for the 
selection of leaders, and it has not failed in its task. 
As a first requisite in training leaders it was necessary 
to find out who the leaders were and this could easily be 
done by casting out those who failed to meet the quite 
altered requirements of the higher school. From his very 
entering day the high school pupil has been placed on the 
defensive to prove his fitness to stay in school. Those 
who were unable or unwilling to defend themselves by a 
good school record were easily disposed of; no law for- 
bidding, they were at once shown the way out and ad- 
vised "to go to work." One does not have to go back to 
ancient history to find a high school teacher boasting of 
the thoroughness of his instruction in which scarcely more 
than half of his pupils could reach the passing grade. 

It is true that the past ten years or so, have marked a 
decided change in the purposes for which the American 
public maintains its secondary schools, but it is equally 
true that the established habits of over a century 
have not yet been modified in a majority of our high 
schools of today. Though the public maintains its sec- 
ondary high schools as a people's college where element- 
ary pupils may go, not to be made leaders, but to be made 
more useful to> themselves and to the community, still 
there are enough principals and teachers of the genera- 
tion that is passing to keep the high schools at work upon 
a duty that has passed. 

In a majority of our high schools of today as in a 
majority of high schools since they first existed the pupil 



18 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

is supposed to study at home alone the work he will be 
expected to recite in class tomorrow. To be sure there 
may be a modicum of explanation by the teacher, of the 
work so assigned. The task itself may not be over diffi- 
cult, but the point of view is wholly different. In the 
elementary school the pupil knew that he shared with his 
teacher the obligations of his daily work. If it was his 
duty to learn, it was equally the teacher's duty to see 
that he learned. The question of study was secondary to 
the question of learning. If in the seventh and eighth 
years the pupil would not study, then the teacher failing 
in all else, was obliged to study for the pupil and to feed 
him his mental pabulum in pre-digested form. 

As the emphasis in the elementary school lies almost 
wholly upon getting the facts, but scarcely at all upon 
the manner of their getting, so in the high school the 
emphasis still lies upon the facts, but here the manner 
of their getting, namely by the pupil alone at home, is 
given at least equal importance through the emphasis 
laid upon the daily home-prepared recitation. 

It may be well enough to say that the elementary pu- 
pils should be taught how to study, before they are al- 
lowed to graduate, but what principal or superintendent 
ever set a "graduation examination" based on this abil- 
ity? 

So long as the elementary school attitude remains, as 
it has for generations: "Make the pupils get' the facts 
and no embarrassing questions will be asked as to how 
they get them," just so long will the ambitious, ener- 
getic and resourceful teacher truly carry her class, if 
that be necessary, across the passing mark for "gradu- 
ation." However, once across the line and en- 
tered in a- high school the pupil is set tasks with no 
attempt to cajole him to his work. Indeed but little if 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 19 

any effort is made to prove to him that the work itself 
is really worth his while. Even the most conscientious 
among high school teachers may feel that it is below 
his dignity to defend the usefulness of his specialty 
to a little ignoramus of fourteen years. More often 
we find the attitude of the high school teacher 
one of condescending pity. "You poor simpleton/' he 
seems to say to his backward pupil, "if you don't know 
enough to study my subject, you are beneath my notice. 
Fail and leave school, as you deserve." 

This is no great exaggeration of the situation as we 
find it in most, if not all, of our public school systems of 
today. We shall consider this again under General 
Method, but for the present we have but to agree that 
some remedy should be found for the sake of our pupils 
who suffer so inevitably as things now stand. 

For a third time we meet the question of whether it 
is more reasonable and more economical to remodel the 
schools we have or to secure the ends we seek by estab- 
lishing a new type of school that includes the three years 
that most need alteration — the closing elementary and 
the beginning secondary school years. If we decide, as 
seems inevitable, that a new type of school seems the 
more rational solution, since it gives the greater promise 
of success, then a third reason for the establishment of 
junior high schools is secured. 

Whether the mass of our junior high school pupils go 
to senior high school or work out their own salvation "on 
the job" they will still be better able to help themselves 
to an advance in knowledge, than would have been pos- 
sible had they been trained only in the older types of 
schools. 

The junior high school with eyes looking forward, 
helping its pupils to find themselves, trains them to rely 



20 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCT^°~ 

more and more on themselves in .ug new knowl- 

edge. 

The tfrree aims that we have considered are unques- 
tionably worthy, but still incomplete. In our discussion 
of the course of study we may add another aim that may 
strengthen "&ur. belief in those we have just now worked 
out. 

1. What are some of the less worthy motives that have led to 

the founding of the junior high schools? 

2. What are some of the major faults of the later years in the 

old time elementary school? ' 

3. What tremendous freedom of election has been allowed all 

elementary school pupils on graduation? How were these 
pupils fitted to use this freedom? 

4. What are some of the more conspicuous faults of the first 

year's work in a four year high school? 

5. What training is necessary to make a wise choice of elec- 

tives possible? 

6. What does the junior high school propose to attempt in 

this situation? 

7. What arguments can you give for establishing junior high 

schools (rather than attempting to remodel our estab- 
lished elementary and high schools) based upon these 
possible changes: 
(a) A revised course of study? 
(6) A preparation for later freedom of election? 
(c) A progressive training in self reliance? 



r IJJI. 



CHAPTER II 

THE USE OF ERQlGHOSTIC TESTS IN THE JUNIOR 
HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

Only recently has the general public manifested any 
interest or any faith in the tests which psychologists had 
long been building up to determine in advance the native 
ability of those attempting to undertake certain lines of 
work. 

However tardy may have been the public's recogni- 
tion of the work of our psychologists their testing our 
soldiers and sailors in the World War has now given men- 
tal tests such a degree of prominence that no one with 
a passing knowledge of current events is ignorant of their 
established value. 

While we have yet some unbelievers to convince, no 
one in actual contact with either the tests or the tested 
has failed to register a high degree of approval. From 
being considered by some at first the vaporings of dis- 
ordered minds, the army tests came to be recognized by 
the most cynical as forecasts of the future too near the 
truth to be disregarded without undeniable loss. 

It is a well known fact that the candidates for officers' 
training schools justified with hardly a single exception 
the probabilities as worked out by these tests. Of every 
hundred candidates for the officers' training schools in 
, graded by intelligence tests into five men- 
tally equal groups from the brightest to those least bright, 
those in the brightest group had no failures. Those in the 

21 



22 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

lowest group all failed. In the intermediate groups there 
was that intermediate degree of success that their position 
in the group on the psychologists' scale would forecast. 

In several important particulars these army tests 
differed from those that had been previously given in the 
schools. So also those tests that are now being widely 
used in our schools differ somewhat from those that were/ 
recently used in the army, yet in the main all these tests 
agree in the use of a series of puzzles or short problems 
that appear to be wholly unrelated to the work for which 
the forecast is desired. 

We have had intelligence tests in the school for many 
years, but these tests have been used mainly, if not 
wholly, to determine the subnormal and the defectives. 
The Binet-Simon tests variously revised and adapted 
have stood out as perhaps the most widely and most suc- 
cessfully used for this purpose. 

To give properly these tests first required a skilled and 
carefully trained psychologist. Each child tested re- 
quired a quiet room alone save for the examiner, who 
gave one pupil his entire attention. A careful test might 
take hours and even then leave the results in doubt. 
There was no possibility of a thorough review of the find- 
ings of any test except by repeated re-examinations by 
other experts. Indeed in the earliest tests, each single 
examiner had but slight possibility of being able to de- 
tect or to make allowance for his own personal idiosyn- 
cracies in conducting his examination of the child. 

For the army use it was quite evident that the former 
school tests must be greatly modified in order to be at all 
practical. 

In the first place there were but very few examiners 
who could be trusted or trained to give a mental test of 
the type that required skilled preparation and personal 



PROGNOSTIC TESTS IN ADMINISTRATION 23 

attention. In the second place there were tens of thou- 
sands who must be tested almost at once. The idea of 
individual tests as formerly conducted was wholly out of 
the question. It became necessary for the psychologists to 
develop so called battery tests which could be given to 
several hundred candidates at one and the same time, 
under nearly uniform conditions, by men who were not 
psychologists and who had but an extremely short time 
to acquire such training as might be given. 

Furthermore these tests had to be given to men, many 
of whom could neither read nor write the English lan- 
guage, and indeed to some that could not read or write 
any language at all. The tests further were to be de- 
signed to forecast that indefinite something known as 
military availability so that the men might be immedi- 
ately placed as soldiers or sailors in those positions where 
they would be of greatest value to their country in the 
great conflict. Consequently the tests had to be among 
other things so designed as to be capable of quick correc- 
tion and evaluation. 

Inasmuch as no one was able accurately and exactly 
to describe military availability our psychologists had in- 
deed a doubly difficult task set before them. The wonder- 
ful degree of success that attended their efforts cannot but 
thrill us all, not only with admiration, but with a pardon- 
able feeling of patriotic pride that our American psychol- 
ogists were able to work out a satisfactory solution of 
such an indescribably difficult problem. 

The result of the patriotic labors of our American 
psychologists was first to assist mightily in bringing suc- 
cess to our efforts to win the war, but the second result 
seems to be of almost equal value and permanence. The 
tests designed for our soldiers and sailors, when modified 
to meet the present conditions, seem to be capable — in- 



24 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

deed have proved capable — of use in forecasting instead 
of military availability the thing we teachers are so inter- 
ested in — the probable school success of our boys and 
girls. 

However, it must be kept in mind that while these 
tests may have a more or less general application to all 
lines of human endeavor, the most trustworthy forecasts 
will come from specialized tests. Such tests have been 
and are being worked out to forecast the ability of in- 
dividuals to enter upon certain definite lines of work. 
We may have one series of tests for men who are plan- 
ning to become translators and quite another series for 
those who are planning to become civil engineers. No 
single series is capable of giving forecasts of a very high 
degree of probability for all occupations, and yet it seems 
possible to determine to a remarkable degree of certainty 
what we may call for want of a better name general 
native ability. We seem to be able to discover by these 
mental tests what we might call the basic mental alert- 
ness of those who are examined. A reasonable degree of 
this basic alertness or general native ability seems neces- 
sary for success in ANY line of work. If we can add to 
the results of our tests in general ability tests in special 
ability we can secure forecasts of really wonderful prog- 
nostic value. These are the tests that are now being 
worked out in all the leading psychological laboratories 
of our American colleges. 

Though our special tests are still but partially devel- 
oped, we have now several tests of general ability that 
are of tremendous value in forecasting school success, 
which seems to require among other things this general 
native ability which we have just discussed. 

The great value of these tests in school work will later 
be considered; just now it is worth while to note the 



PROGNOSTIC TESTS IN ADMINISTRATION 25 

ease with which we may secure prognostications of un- 
doubted value. 

It is possible as a result of the work of our Amer- 
ican psychologists in the World War to test at one and 
the same time as many pupils as can be seated in any 
school building with reasonable precaution against dis- 
turbances and intercommunications of any kind. It is 
possible for any intelligent teacher to conduct these tests 
after less than an hour of preparation and with no previ- 
ous psychological training. Finally it is possible to cor- 
rect and tabulate the results of these tests without special 
training and with a remarkably small expenditure of 
time and energy. 

From the tabulated results of such a group test, it is 
possible for the faculty of any school, before their enter- 
ing pupils have been divided into classes or have prepared 
even a single recitation, to determine with a high de- 
gree of probability the future success or failure of every 
pupil in the entering class. 

However, we must not let our enthusiasm for these 
tests lead us to forget that all the tests yet published 
are still in the formative period and are approximate 
rather than definite forecasts of school success. We are 
most safe when we apply the results of our tests to 
groups rather than to individuals. We must not go so 
far as to say that Smith, whose results are five per cent 
lower than Brown's, will prove a less able student. We 
cannot as yet make sharp and definite divisions between 
individuals though we can unfailingly do so between 
groups. It is quite possible if we arrange our pupils ac- 
cording to their rating into five consecutive groups from 
the highest to the lowest, to say with no fear of having 
our statement later disproved, that a boy in the highest 
group has, for example, ten times or so the chance of 



26 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

success that a boy has if in the lowest group, or twice 
the chances of success of that boy whose test places him 
in the middle group. Indeed for the purposes of our 
school work it is not necessary for us to know so defi- 
nitely the comparative value of the ratings of any two 
isolated pupils. (The greatest value of our psychological 
tests is the ability it gives us to group our pupils into 
classes of approximately equal ability where it is possi- 
ble for the instructor to be absolutely sure that whatever 
is within the comprehension of the middle group of the 
pupils of his class will be within the reach of all. 

The economy of teaching effort secured by such a 
grouping is remarkable. The progress of such a group 
is regular and constant. The speed with which new 
work may be taken up or old work reviewed is the same 
for any group of equal psychological rank. Under ideal 
conditions where the body of entering pupils is sufficiently 
large it is possible to have a class of forty pupils that is 
almost as one individual for the work of instruction. 

Where the pupils tested are few it may be necessary 
to seat in one class pupils of widely different native abili- 
ity ; no homogeneous grouping may be possible. Yet even 
there the teacher is able to distinguish more surely than 
by class results between those who fail from laziness and 
those who fail from simple lack of "brains" — and 
equally between those who succeed without effort and 
those who gain success only by the hardest kind of work. 
Castigations and commendations will, be more nearly 
meted out on a basis of truth and justice in a previously 
tested class than can be possible under any other plan 
no matter how able may be the teacher in charge. 

For the junior high school more than for any other 
educational institution the mental tests of today are of 
genuine practical value. We have pupils who have fin- 



PROGNOSTIC TESTS IN ADMINISTRATION 27 

ished the sixth grammar grade and who now look for- 
ward to a three years' course probably leading them into 
senior high school work. If we consider this three years' 
work as outlined in our official course of study, not as 
the work which we must be occupied with for three years, 
but as a certain aggregate quantity of work to be covered 
by each pupil with a certain predetermined degree of 
success we have a better point of view for our purpose. 

Our task is then to take our pupils over a certain 
amount of work with a certain "passing" degree of ac- 
complishment. For convenience and as a result of ex- 
perience, trial and error, we have found that, on the 
whole, three years seems a reasonable amount of time to 
grant our "average" pupil in which to do this work. 

However, if now with the results of our mental tests in 
hand we find many pupils who show promise of being 
able to do the work in two years, why then must we com- 
pel them to take an added year to do this work simply 
because others cannot progress as rapidly? On the other 
hand, if our mental tests discover (as they almost always 
will do) a group that cannot possibly do the work in 
the three years, why then must this group be pushed 
ahead at a rate of speed that will make their future fail- 
ure inevitable — not of necessity because they 
cannot do the work— but because they cannot do the 
work at the rate of speed our school conventions re- 
quire. 

We educators have been accused of maintaining in our 
courses of study procrustean beds upon which our pupils 
are forced to lie, and in part our critics and accusers have 
been right. Yet all this has been because we have endeav- 
ored to give our "average pupil" the consideration which 
we believed was his due in the matter of time allowance. 
Because we have had to work with large groups of un- 



28 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

certain mental adaptability and because until very, very 
recently we have been unable to forecast the time element 
in education with any trustworthy degree of accuracy, 
we have — to their undoubted injury for life — chopped 
off the bright and stretched out the dull so. that they 
might fit the bed of our average time allowance of so 
many years for so much work. 

The change that will. come, or has come, begins with 
our turning our faces toward the work to be done as so 
much actual subject matter to be studied and covered 
with whatever degree of accuracy we may decide upon. 
The trouble has been that in the past we appear to have 
been regarding the time element as the real essential. 
Four years of secondary education appear to have been 
agreed upon as necessary. Having first decided upon the 
time to be spent in secondary education, it then became 
necessary to find the subjects to fill the time so as- 
signed. 

With the improvement of our mental tests, good as 
they are at present, we may hope to find the primary em- 
phasis placed upon the work itself and only secondary 
importance attached to time. After all if the work is well 
done, as established by as searching tests as may be nec- 
essary, why do we need to concern ourselves so vitally 
with the element of time? Is it not more vital for edu- 
cational advancement for us to know that a boy has an 
accurate and facile acquaintance with "elementary alge- 
bra through quadratics" than to know that he has had 
"a year of algebra." 

Part of the reform must come through our colleges, 
who have in most cases laid down the time requirements 
for our secondary schools. In the meanwhile it remains 
for our junior high schools to be real pioneers. We are 
less hampered at present by tradition, by prescribed 



PROGNOSTIC TESTS IN ADMINISTRATION 29 

regulations, by domination from any source than are the 
schools of any other grades below the college. 

By considering the work of the junior high school as so 
much work to be done, whether in one, two, three or four 
years, we are making an advance that marks an epoch in 
education. 

We are able to take this new point of view only be- 
cause through perhaps a happy accident the growth of 
the junior high schools and of the prognostic tests of 
school success were coincident in point of time. 

If our estimation of those mental tests is the correct 
one the junior high school that does not avail itself 
of the forecasts now within reach falls far short of its 
service to the schools of today. 

For the benefit of those of our readers who are inter- 
ested in more details concerning the success of prog- 
nostic mental measurements the following pages of this 
chapter are designed: 

Since 1915 the Speyer Experimental Junior High School 
has been using tests of general native ability for grad- 
ing all its entering pupils into classes where pupils 
of approximately equal ability might work together. 

The mental tests were given as soon as possible — - re- 
cently on the first day — after the new pupils were ad- 
mitted. 

Following these tests by some seven or eight weeks 
these same pupils were given another uniform examina- 
tion, this time upon the school work they had covered 
since entering. This final grading, which with oc- 
casional exceptions, endured during the pupils' stay at 
Speyer, was made by combining the results of the two 
series of tests: — the psychological and those based on 
school work. No two sets of psychological tests given the 
entering pupils were the same — new combinations being 



30 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

used and new tests introduced as each succeeding group 
entered the school. The work of correcting, weighing and 
combining the results of these earlier tests was very 
heavy. One group of one hundred and fifty entering pu- 
pils was given no less than thirteen short tests within 
three days. To evaluate the results of these tests required 
the extra time of three or four teachers for more than two 
weeks. Recently Speyer School has been using modified 
forms of the Army Intelligence Test — booklets of five 
or six short tests for which the pupils were given a little 
over an hour in all. The results of these tests were scored 
and tabulated by two teachers in one evening's work. 
The classifications made as a result of the shorter tests 
have not been on the whole as exact as those of some of 
the longer ones, but the saving in time and energy seems 
to warrant the change. 

In the opinion of those who studied the classification 
and grading of the pupils at Speyer the tests of native 
mental ability were, on the whole, not measures but rather 
approximations of school success. 

We came to believe that other factors not measured as 
yet were of great importance, for example, industry, sys- 
tem and regularity in home study and a serious purpose 
in work are factors of almost as great importance as 
actual native ability. Taking an illustration from the 
financial world we came to believe that each pupil's 
native ability represented his inherited fortune — large or 
small as the case might be. The returns on this inher- 
ited money when reinvested by the pupil in school suc- 
cess varied as the pupil who invested this inheritance did 
so wisely or foolishly. The wise (persevering and indus- 
trious) pupil made such an investment as to give him a 
high rate of interest and a large yearly return in school 
success. The foolish (lazy and inattentive) pupil, though 



PROGNOSTIC TESTS IN ADMINISTRATION 31 

possibly with a larger inherited capital, through a poor 
investment of it secured a lower annual return than others 
with less inheritance. In a word the boy's hereditary 
ability was his principal, his industry was his rate per 
cent and his school success was his annual interest. 

However, more recently we have come to believe that 
certain combinations of mental tests will measure both 
ability and industry at one and the same time. 

Our conversion to this point of view came as the result 
of a series of tests given by Leo H. King, at the time a 
graduate student at Teachers College, Columbia Univer- 
sity. King took entire charge of testing the mentality 
of the 275 pupils that entered Speyer Experimental Junior 
High School in February 1919, he not only gave the tests 
but corrected and tabulated the results. 

On the basis of the measurements given us by King we 
divided the entering class pupils into a sequence of eight 
classes of approximately thirty-four pupils each. Taking 
the first thirty-four from the list of pupils arranged in 
order of their success in these tests, we formed them into 
one class, the next thirty-four into the second class and so 
on until the eighth class was made up of those who stood 
at the bottom of the list. 

Seven weeks later we gave the same pupils a series of 
uniform examinations upon the school work they had 
covered since entering. As a result of our school tests we 
changed the classification of some twenty-five of our 
275 entering pupils, placing each pupil, whose general 
ratings in our subject-matter examination indicated the 
necessity of a change, with that class whose median rating 
in our examination was most nearly like his own. 

After some twenty weeks of school work (actually in 
November 1919) we gave another uniform set of school 
examinations to determine the relative progress of the 



32 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

eight classes of this same group. Again about twenty- 
five pupils showed by their general ratings that a change 
in class was necessary and while these changes were 
under discussion the earlier ratings given us by King were 
reviewed. Imagine our surprise to find that each pupil 
whose latest record called for a change in class showed 
that he should be returned to the very class in which he 
was first placed by our earlier mental measurements and 
from which we had him taken twenty school weeks be- 
fore. 

This experience shattered our belief in the necessity of 
holding to the "principal and interest theory" which we 
had come to support. We believe that while all standard 
psychological tests do not measure both ability and indus- 
try, certain combinations have done and will do this. At 
the present writing, sixty school weeks later, we have 
found no reason for changing any of these pupils from 
their original class groups. 

The chief contribution made by King was the peculiar 
combination of tests designed to detect different abilities. 
There were nineteen different tests in all that were used 
and these were grouped into six different series. The par- 
ticular contribution that will be made in the future will 
consist in the manner in which the tests are set up. This 
particular series included both verbal and non-verbal 
tests, in all the various forms which have been used by 
Otis, Thorndike, Terman and others. 

These were the tests used : 

NON-VERBAL 
Series I 

1 Figure series completion 

2 Figure cutting 

3 Figure association 

4 Picture analogy 



PROGNOSTIC TESTS IN ADMINISTRATION 33 



Series II 


5 


Picture completion 


6 


Picture analogy- 


7 


Object association 


8 


Fundamental arithmetical processes 




VERBAL 


Series III 


9 


Easy directions 


10 


Arithmetic 


11 


Reasoning 


12 


Word analogy 


13 


Opposites 


14 


Number interpretation 


15 


Number perception 


16 


Information 


17 


Briggs analogy 


18. 


Kelley-Trabue completion 


19 


Thorndike reading 



As a result of these tests just discussed the teachers 
of Speyer School now believe that it is possible to make 
a classification of pupils on their entering week that un- 
der normal conditions should endure throughout their 
course. Granted that pupils of lower ability may spurt 
ahead and pupils of higher ability may drop behind, it is 
still for neither type their natural gait. The less able pu- 
pil who advances himself by extraordinary effort finds 
that he is unable to keep up the strained pace set by his 
more able fellows and sooner or later drops back to his 
natural group. Similarly, the bright pupil who falls be- 
hind finds his lower class progress slow, dull and uninter- 
esting and soon takes up his natural gait and rejoins his 
original group. 

Of course all our prognostications are based on the 
pre-supposition "other things being equal." It is not to 
be supposed that the bright pupil who is employed in 



34 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

a store many hours each day can furnish the quality of 
school work that his mental measurements would show 
to be his natural product. Nor is it to be supposed that 
the slower pupil whose parents exact an excessive amount 
of school preparation will fail to rise slightly above his 
fellows of equal ability who have no such restrictions. 
For the teacher it is enough to know that if a pupil of 
superior ability as shown by the mental tests fails to 
deliver that quality of work which these tests forecast, 
that there is some cause to be sought outside the class 
room. Knowing that there must be a cause gives faith 
to persevere until the cause is found. Having found the 
cause the teacher is in a position to apply the remedy 
if one exists. From every standpoint then the results 
of standard prognostic tests are valuable to the teacher 
even more than to the administrator. 

While few schools can command the services of ex- 
perts, the results of the tests just described give us reason 
to hope that there may be evolved in the not far distant 
future a series of tests easy to conduct, and easy also 
to correct and tabulate, which may give a remarkably 
accurate forecast of any child's chances of school success. 

In the meanwhile it appears to be the duty of all 
junior high schools to use such tests as we now have so 
that we do not lose the ninety per cent accuracy now 
available while we are waiting for perfection. 

Note: The Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, N. Y., 
and the World Book Co., Yonkers, N. Y., will supply at 
moderate cost tests, with the hand-book that tells exactly 
how the tests must be given, to those not already supplied 
with this information. 



1. When and why were the group tests of general intelligence 
first widely employed? 



PROGNOSTIC TESTS IN ADMINISTRATION 35 

2. What tests of general intelligence had been previously 

published and why could not these earlier tests be 
generally employed? 

3. What do our newer psychological tests for school use 

attempt to measure? 

4. What -discrimination must we avoid making from the 

results of our group tests of school success? 

5. What gain may I expect if I am given a group of homo- 

geneous ability to teach? 

6. What earlier assumption concerning the findings of general 

intelligence tests seems to have been disproved at Speyer 
School? 

7. What is the line of improvement that must be followed 

in making up newer and better tests of school success? 

8. What do I need to know in order to give these tests 

myself ? 






CHAPTER III 

SPEED GROUPING IN THE JUNIOR HIGH 
SCHOOL 

Though it has long been recognized that all pupils 
do not acquire, or assimilate in school, new subject-mat- 
ter or new processes at the same rate of speed, never- 
theless, the country over, little definite progress has been 
made in working out a definite plan, capable of general 
application, which would make promotions adaptable 
to the pupils' native or hereditary rate of speed in learn- 
ing. 

Pupils have long been grouped in classes of thirty 
or more where an official printed outline or syllabus of 
work determined in advance the amount of school work 
that each class should attempt to cover in a semester or 
in a longer definite period of time. 

Nevertheless, in each normal or average class have 
been found pupils whose natural or inherited ability 
would enable them to progress at twice the rate of learn- 
ing proposed for the class. Similarly, there have been 
found pupils whose rate of learning is so slow that they 
could never hope to learn in even double the prescribed 
time the officially designated facts or processes, required 
to pass" in the work of their grade. 

Between these two extremes is a middle group that, 
on the whole, finds the time allowance for the work 
planned fairly satisfactory for their inherited abilities, 
but this middle group in every class is by no means 
sharply defined. From the pupils that learn most rap- 

: 36 



SPEED GROUPING IN THE SCHOOL 37 

idly to those that learn most slowly there is usually a 
gradual falling off in the rate of learning that is scarcely 
perceptible when we measure the differences between 
two contiguous pupils in such a sequence. 

The loss sustained by pupils in the usual school class 
is not always fully appreciated. We have been in the 
habit of assuming that pupils, who naturally learn more 
quickly than the average of their class, suffer nothing 
more serious than the theoretical loss of time spent in 
doing more slowly with the class, the things that they 
could do more quickly if not held back to keep step with 
the group. 

However, this loss is by far the smaller one in my 
estimation, when compared with certain habits of lazi- 
ness that these brighter pupils are actually being taught 
in their progress through the school grades. 

Pupils who learn the new work, appreciate the new 
processes, assimilate the new facts well in advance of 
their classmates, are both a delight and a nuisance to 
their teacher. They are a delight in that they may be 
early checked off by the teacher as needing no further 
attention, on her part, in the lesson at hand. They are 
a nuisance in so far as they insist upon volunteering in- 
formation which the teacher is laboriously endeavoring 
to develop from the mental processes of the slower pupils 
of the class. As a result, the brighter pupils suffer a 
very decided repression in the class room which dulls 
their eagerness to work by lessening their desire to make 
self active contributions. 

The skilled teacher who is striving earnestly to keep 
her class together and to secure a high percentage of 
promotions at the end of the year knows that she will 
obtain the best results for her group as a whole, if she 
devotes ninety per cent of her energies toward instructing 



38 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

that small group that is stationed just on the danger line 
of failure. The ten or fifteen per cent that is "hopeless" 
she wisely does not attempt to lead in an effort that is 
inevitably foredoomed to failure. The brightest pupils, 
on the other hand, "will take care of themselves." If 
the teacher but aims to fit her instruction to the intelli- 
gence of the moderately slow, the danger line group, she 
will surely include the intelligence of all of average or 
higher ability. Therefore the teacher of experience learns 
to concentrate her energies on the minds of those pupils 
who are below, but not hopelessly below, the average in- 
telligence of her class. Years of teaching have shown her 
that such a plan brings the greatest good to the greatest 
number — if percentages of pupils promoted is a measure 
of that good. 

However, in very recent years, indeed chiefly with the 
past year, there has come a better appreciation of the loss 
the brighter, or quicker, pupils suffer from the treatment 
they receive even in the average class described. 

In the first place these quicker learning pupils are de- 
nied that training in effort which is necessary not only to 
the fullest development of their minds, but equally to the 
highest development of their moral characters. To gain 
promotion from grade to grade it is only necessary for the 
quicker pupils to be reasonably attentive, or perhaps only 
sporadically attentive, to the instruction others are re- 
ceiving, if only at the same time they be reasonably po- 
lite, quiet and inactive while the slower ones are receiv- 
ing the teacher's earnest efforts. 

A very careful analysis of the requirements laid upon 
the more capable students in each average class will force 
us to realize that these pupils are actually being forced to 
acquire habits of laziness in order to adapt them- 
selves to their customary school surroundings. 



SPEED GROUPING IN THE SCHOOL 39 

This discovery, if such it may be called, was forced 
upon me in my position as supervisor of some classes 
composed almost entirely of boys of very unusual mental 
ability in Speyer Experimental Junior High School. From 
some twenty neighboring schools there are promoted 
semi-annually to Speyer the pupils ranking in the upper 
quarter of the sixth year grades just completed. Among 
these pupils so promoted are some who, by psychological 
tests, possess intellects very far above the average to be 
found in the usual public school classes — class leaders 
in the various schools from which they come. 

It would be but fair to assume that if we could form a 
class composed of class leaders, school work of a quality 
and quantity heretofore impossible could be at once se- 
cured. 

The surprise and disappointment that is bound (it 
would seem almost inevitably) to follow from a study of 
the actual work of such a class is more than startling. 
Though we are assured by their previous school records 
that these pupils have been class leaders, though the psy- 
chological tests show them to have remarkable native 
ability, or general intelligence — still we find their prog- 
ress halting and scarcely better than "average" for a 
while at least. 

It is both amusing and disheartening to witness the 
first lessons in such a newly assembled class. No one 
seems over anxious to learn. There is little or no compe- 
tition or rivalry for leadership. Most decidedly there is 
no conscious effort put forth by any appreciable 
fraction of the class. The whole attitude of such a class 
might be summed up as "watchful waiting" — waiting for 
the teacher to struggle with the class dullards and so to 
give them, the brighter, a chance to absorb the new work 
without effort. There being no dullards, this class of class 



40 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

leaders often merely slumps into mediocrity for an appre- 
ciable period and is frequently surpassed for the first 
years work by a group of children of far less ability. 

But there is further evidence to support the belief that 
pupils of unusual mental ability, sufficiently docile, are 
being taught habits of laziness. This evidence comes 
from the extremely accurate and complete records kept 
for the pupils of a large privately endowed parental 
school where selected children of a school age are housed 
and cared for as only in the more fortunate homes. The 
head of this institution has applied individual psychologi- 
cal tests to his wards ever since the tests have reached a 
reasonable degree of trustworthiness, for some five years 
back at least. Records are also kept of each pupil's 
monthly success in school work and when these pupils 
leave school a very careful follow-up system keeps track 
of their success in industry or business. 

The interesting and pertinent fact is that the records 
to date show that the highest degree of success in em- 
ployment is secured by those pupils who are measured 
as of average, or normal ability. The pupils who were 
rated as decidedly above the average seem so far to 
fare no better than those markedly below the average 
when they are thrown upon their own resources. 

The possible explanations for such a situation are 
countless, but seen from the angle of the mental habits 
acquired by these pupils in school I venture to insist 
that one cause of this slump in progress is the training 
in habits of laziness, which these quicker pupils have un- 
consciously been receiving during their eight or more 
years in the class room. All unconsciously to themselves, 
to their teachers, or to their guardians, these quicker 
learning children have been trained in ways of easy 
knowledge and when in employment it seems but fair 



SPEED GROUPING IN THE SCHOOL 41 

to assume that easy jobs and easy money would be their 
natural and first consideration. 

Here, then, is a situation which, even if it be not as 
black as I have painted it, is still so serious in its possi- 
bilities for harm as to demand the attention of the best 
minds that are at work on our present-day school prob- 
lems. Are we not conducting our public schools today in 
a way which may make those children who should con- 
tribute the most to our nation's mental, spiritual and 
material progress the least able to make their rightful 
contribution? 

Having considered the harm that may easily come — 
does usually come — to those who naturally are able to 
progress in school at a much more rapid rate than the 
average of a normal class, let us now consider those who 
find the progress of their class always just a little too 
fast for their slower powers of acquisition. In this class 
I do not place the mentally defective, at least two in 
every two hundred of our school population, but those 
who can, and in many cases do, "pass" from grade to 
grade in school, always just by a hair's breadth man- 
aging to escape the official line marked "failure." These 
pupils, though regarded as "promotions," are still recog- 
nized and often labelled as dullards. Their limping in- 
tellects seem never able to progress without the teacher's 
help. Sometimes they seem to be patient, plodding, oxen- 
like creatures who are willing to do their best while know- 
ing that even their best is not really very good. Some- 
times they are rebellious, sulky, antagonistic boys and 
girls who cause their teacher many weary days and 
sleepless nights — stealing from their classmates each 
day the attention and the energy of the teacher, who feels 
she must give all her time to instruction and none to 
discipline if her class is to cover the work of its grade. 



42 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

From class to class these slow-learning pupils may be 
passed onward and upward, always more or less deficient 
in the work of the grade they are leaving, always more 
or less unable to undertake the work of the grade just 
ahead. If seventy per cent is the passing mark, these 
slower-learning pupils may be credited with never know- 
ing more than two of every three facts or processes the 
teacher has attempted to teach them. 

If they can add a column of figures correctly two times 
in three, they have reached 66 + %, almost enough for 
promotion. If they write with a reasonable degree of 
correctness twice in three trials, they may hope for a 
passing mark. If they get two thirds of the facts in their 
geography lesson or fail in but one third of their explana- 
tions of historical events, they "pass," but nowhere if 
promoted regularly do they ever gain an appreciation of 
thoroughness in their school work. 

Let us frankly admit that for a considerable fraction 
of our class — the submerged third, let us say — there 
is being given a training in habits of half-doing, or of 
failure that cannot fail to work harm when these pupils 
are sooner or later thrown on their own resources. 

Many of these pupils are practically never given an 
opportunity to do their work in any subject, because the 
pace set for the average, or normal, child is always too 
fast for them to stay long enough on any one topic or 
process to get it thoroughly in mind. 

To be sure, if these slow-learning pupils should be so 
slow as to lose promotion at the end of any school term, 
they may repeat the work of their grade and may learn 
some of their work more thoroughly. However, in this 
very repetition there is the stigma of previous failure 
attached to the slow pupil. It would almost seem that 
for some pupils in every school grade their only hope of 



SPEED GROUPING IN THE SCHOOL 43 

thoroughness lies in failure — an anomaly — but an in- 
dictment of our usual school organization to cause us no 
small alarm. 

In considering these slower learning pupils' progress 
in school, I have often considered the similarity of their 
case to my own when as a passenger in a rapidly moving 
railroad train or automobile, I have been whirled past 
some huge advertising sign or public notice that I really 
wanted to read, but of which I could at best get but a 
few words, and miss the rest. If I am taker; over the 
same road again and at the same rate of speed, my 
memory helping me, I get a little more of the message, 
and finally, if I make the trip enough times, I get it all — 
a thorough understanding of the thought expressed. 
However, had I passed that way but once, at a rate of 
speed suited to my individual quickness or slowness 
of apprehension, I would have grasped the entire mes- 
sage at the very first reading. The simile would be 
complete if I had beside me as a super-passenger one 
who, either by begging or by threatening, was urging me 
to read the sign faster than my mental capacity would 
possibly permit. Something tells me that if such a 
situation existed for me, I should empty upon my tor- 
mentor all the vials of my wrath, rather than quickly to 
admit total failure and incapacity. 

How many times in school work is it assumed that 
"pressure while repeating the grade" is the one cure for 
previous failure — and often requiring on this repetition 
the same rate of mental speed as on the pupil's earlier, 
unsuccessful attempt to understand the topics taught. 

If the quicker pupils in the ordinary class are taught 
habits of mental laziness, the slower pupils are taught 
habits of failure — habits of failing to get anything 
thoroughly, habits of- being content with a 60% or 70% 



44 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

achievement, habits of loss of self-respect, habits of say- 
ing "What's the use — I can't do it well — why make 
the effort?" 

Even the average, or normal, pupil cannot escape the 
harmful example of observing the pupils, both above 
and below him, being trained in bad habits. These aver- 
age pupils see their brighter classmates gaining pro- 
motion without effort and their slower classmates gain- 
ing promotion with but little achievement. It is small 
wonder that we find in many pupils of the middle group, 
a desire to imitate both extremes by aiming to use the 
least effort necessary to get the minimum required 
achievement. 

The answer and remedy lies first in homogeneous 
grouping of our pupils as the result of carefully given 
tests of general intelligence, combined with, or influenced 
by, the pupils' previous school record. But if there is 
disagreement in the forecast, the classification should be 
swayed more by the psychological than by the scholastic 
tests, for the latter shows only what he has done, the for- 
mer shows what he should have done. 

To the degree that in a single school, or in a group of 
neighboring schools there is a large enrollment of pupils 
in any one grade, to that degree is homogeneous group- 
ing possible and useful. 

We have previously discussed the value of homoge- 
neous grouping from the standpoint of what it makes pos- 
sible in positive lines of work — we now see its possibili- 
ties in the matter of prevention of waste — waste in bad 
habits taught in school — waste in the taxpayers' annual 
contributions to school support, for the salaries of 
teachers, for the material equipment and housing neces- 
sary for those pupils who have been forced to progress at 
an unnatural rate of speed in their school work. 



SPEED GROUPING IN THE SCHOOL 45 

To be sure not all school communities have enough 
pupils enrolled in any one grade or school year to make 
this kind of homogeneous speed-grouping a simple mat- 
ter. However, in most towns or villages, there are enough 
pupils promoted into the work of the seventh school 
year to make it worth while to assemble them under one 
roof and under one supervisor so that they may be 
classified into groups which more nearly approximate 
a grouping of abilities. 

I have never seen a group so large that its size did 
not greatly improve the possible homogeneous grouping, 
but with even three classes in a grade at least something 
can be done. Five classes of thirty-five children each 
can give very satisfactory results I know from actual 
experience, but far inferior to what I should hope to 
secure from twice that number similarly graded into 
ten classes. 

Call our assembled seventh year pupils a junior high 
school if you will, but make the seventh year classifica- 
tion on the basis of assembling the largest possible num- 
ber of pupils of the seventh year under one roof. Rather 
than to have two junior high schools with parallel ver- 
tical courses in different parts of a small city, I would 
make the division a horizontal one and give each school 
all the pupils in one grade. The hardships of a longer 
walk to school, or even of a cold lunch in winter, are not 
so great as the hardships of habits of laziness or of 
failure that may be unavoidable for many in the smaller 
school nearer home. 

In securing homogeneous grouping we have, after 
all, but made some preparation to attack our problem. 
The main point of issue is beyond. The rate of learn- 
ing in each smaller homogeneous group is different from 
that of every other group in the series. Each class has 



46 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

a rate of speed — a maximum rate — laid down for it 
by nature and nature's laws — the laws of heredity or 
hereditary capacity are subject to little change under 
ordinary conditions of health and industry. 

We are now ready for our new course of study, or 
curriculum, which will fit the rate of learning to the 
natural ability of each group. Each group has its 
own work cut out for it, a different amount of work for 
each group, based on a summary of the genuine essen- 
tials to be covered. No such series of courses (within a 
grade) can be laid out in advance — each must be worked 
out in practice by the classroom teachers, but the rules 
for working out the courses may be understood in ad- 
vance. 

If before we have called our passing mark 70%, let 
us advance it not less than twenty points if our original 
group be large enough to permit a genuine regrouping 
of pupils by their abilities as shown in psychological 
tests. 

Each group will then progress at its own normal rate 
of speed, some groups doing in one year the work that it 
will take other groups two years or more to cover with 
the same degree of thoroughness. 

All groups are alike in effort, alike in industry, alike 
in thoroughness, but in achievement each group is as 
different from the others as the capacity of its mem- 
bers is different from the capacity of those in another 
group. 

While school statistics may neccessitate an annual 
promotion day, in reality each day is a promotion day 
for the members of such a group. There is no repeating 
a grade ; pupils are never "left back," or "held over," save 
in cases of absence or ill health. There is always an 'ap- 
proximation of 100% promotion within a group. Pupils 



SPEED GROUPING IN THE SCHOOL 47 

whose mental awakening takes them into a higher speed- 
group are transferred at any time without holding them 
for a promotion day. While other pupils, whose loss of 
energy from ill health lessens their school effort, may for 
a time be placed in a more slowly moving group. 

However, as a matter of school bookkeeping it may oc- 
casionally become necessary to subject all the pupils of 
such a homogeneously subdivided grade to a uniform 
examination, by which the relative progress of each of 
the various sub-groups may be placed more or less 
definitely upon a scale which measures for each group 
its rate of progress in the total work of its official grade. 
The preparation of such a uniform test is itself a matter 
of serious study. 

In the first place, we need a long test, not necessarily 
in point of time, though that is to be considered — but 
especially a long test in the range of subject-matter 
covered. All the questions must be equal in difficulty, 
so far as skill can accomplish this, and the questions 
should always be arranged in the order which the vari- 
ous class teachers have uniformly pursued while teaching 
their classes. The first questions are then based upon 
the first topics, studied alike by all pupils of the grade 
— the questions following next are based upon the 
work which follows next. In brief, the examination is 
a written review, step by step, in sequence of the essen- 
tials of all the work covered by the most rapidly moving 
group — with something added from the work ahead 
which no group has yet attempted. 

For the first few tests in any grade no passing marks 
can be established — nor is there any need of any. 

If we mav suppose each group to be equally well 
taught we will find on studying the examination ratings 
that the groups are distributed with medians or aver- 



48 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

ages ranging from 25% for the lowest, to perhaps 75% 
or even higher, for the quickest moving group. The in- 
terpretation of the results of these examinations then be- 
comes a study in itself. 

If our examination paper has been most carefully pre- 
pared, criticised and revised by all the teachers of the 
grade, we can count our results as more or less accurate 
measures of the speed of learning of each group and, to a 
decidedly lesser extent, of each pupil within the group. 
If the slowest group averages 25%, and the quickest 
group averages 75%, we can say that roughly speaking, 
the higher group at 75% is able to learn three times 
as fast as the lower group at 25% and plan our advance 
work accordingly. To the pupils it must be fully and re- 
peatedly explained that one's rate of learning, other things 
being equal, is not a measure of ultimate success, but 
rather a matter of hereditary endowment — that the use 
w r hich one makes of the knowledge he acquires in school, 
whether he gains that knowledge quickly or slowly, is 
the real measure of a pupil's future promise. 

The pupils in the slowest moving groups who maintain 
themselves at, or above, the median, or middle mark, 
of their group, must be recognized as being just as worthy 
of commendation and of school awards as are similarly 
placed pupils in the most rapidly progressing unit. 

For such a uniform test there is, then, no one 
"passing mark," but a series of such marks — a differ- 
ent one for each case. Whereas, in such a test, 50% 
might indicate failure if unsurpassed by the pupils in one 
group, this same 50% might be a rating indicating the 
highest success if reached in the same test by pupils from 
a more slowly moving group. 

However, these "uniform grade tests" may best come 
infrequently — not more than twice a semester at most 



SPEED GROUPING IN THE SCHOOL 49 

— after the organization of the grade is once completed. 
Late November, late March, or early April and the close 
of the school year have been found to be good dates for 
testing relative progress in achievement. Doubtless 
there are other better dates to be found by experiment. 

The point is that too frequent taking stock of relative 
progress is often not only a waste of time, but may serve 
to discourage some pupils by the inevitable contrasts 
between the extremes of ratings secured. Within each 
group, the weekly or monthly review tests are similar to 
each other in difficulty, but far different in the sub- 
ject-matter they cover. If 80% or 90% be set up as a 
provisional passing mark, for each individual group, then 
each pupil in the group of like-minded pupils must 
reach that mark at least, to continue with his present 
classmates. Any pupil's individual progress and pro- 
motion then, within his group depends upon that pupil's 
tested ability to keep up with his own classmates in their 
daily, weekly and monthly progress — a progress which 
it is arranged in advance shall be within his possibilities, 
however fast or slow that progress be. 

While many supervisors will at once agree to the 
organization of rapidly moving classes within a grade, 
there will always be some who believe that even the slow- 
est-learning group should attempt to cover all the work 
laid down in the official syllabus as a year's work. 
Nothing is more unfair or destructive of good school 
influence than to make allowances for the quicker and 
not for the slower-learning pupils, yet how many 
school systems are open to this indictment. Fortunately, 
they carry their own punishment if not their own cure. 
Not only is the total progress within a grade made lower 
by this discrimination, with a resultant lower proportion 
of total promotions, but such a school system is plagued 



50 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

with ever present problems of discipline which the com- 
pletely grouped system avoids. Pick out a school where 
there is a high percentage of unruly pupils, cases of in- 
subordination, disrespect and incipient revolution, and 
you will find a school where there are many pupils being 
forced to attempt the impossible, and where the pupil 
who cannot do the work at the rate demanded is attempt- 
ing to bolster up his self-respect (perhaps unconsciously) 
by contending that he will not do the work assigned — 
work which the careful student of education discovers 
that the pupil could never hope to do, even if he were to 
work with all the mental energy at his command. 

Fortunately, more and more superintendents are be- 
coming convinced that if rapid advancement classes are 
desirable, classes arranged for slow advancement are 
equally valuable and desirable. 

The junior high school, while by no means the only 
type of school where this grading by speed of learning 
should be employed, still deserves particular attention 
as being the type of school where such a plan may most 
easily be inaugurated. We already have been using 
the psychological tests to secure homogeneous group- 
ing for better teaching units — pupils whose powers of 
comprehension are more or less alike being placed in 
the same class for their own and their teachers' benefit. 

The next step then is not a difficult one in such a 
school — to arrange that our teachers no longer attempt 
to cover the same amount of yearly work with each 
homogeneous group, but rather that they attempt to 
fit their speed of teaching to each group's separate speed 
of learning to the end that each pupil shall work at a 
reasonable maximum of his mental possibilities, neither 
slower, learning habits of laziness, nor faster, learning 
habits of failure, but at the nearest approximation of 



SPEED GROUPING IN THE SCHOOL 51 

that natural speed which his unchangeable mental en- 
dowment has predetermined. 

Once adopted as a permanent feature of our forward 
looking junior high school, we may expect to see "speed- 
grouping" a feature ultimately of all subsequent high 
school organization. 

At this point some one will surely raise the question 
as to whether or not special programs are really de- 
sirable in junior high school work. Despite all that may 
be said for advancing the pupil in those subjects in 
which he is proficient and despite his failure in other 
subjects, nevertheless the junior high school may prove 
altogether too early a point for specialization. 

If in the higher grades of the high school and in 
the college we permit the pupil to select the subjects 
in which he is particularly interested and to avoid 
taking those subjects in which he has no interest or 
little aptitude, it is because we recognize that the time 
has come to permit the pupil to take active steps toward 
preparing for some special line of service. 

In the junior high school, however, we find little jus- 
tification for any such specialization. To be sure, we 
have permitted a selection of one of three major lines 
of work, the academic, or general, the commercial and 
the technical or industrial. However, when a choice 
has been made of one line of work we are jus- 
tified in laying down minimum essentials for promotion 
in this line. In the academic work, for example, a boy 
who is unusally good in mathematics and unusually poor 
in English should be directed to put more time on Eng- 
lish and less on algebra until he has secured at least 
a passing grade in the subject in which he is deficient. 
All the way through our junior high school the em- 
phasis may well be laid upon keeping what some may call 



52 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

a level foundation. The boy who shows unusual profi- 
ciency in social science with a marked deficiency in 
mathematics should be taught to realize that his first 
duty is to make up his deficiency and after that to 
shine in the subject of his choice if he will. Boys, 
as rational beings, will appreciate the value of lay- 
ing a level foundation for future work and they 
can be shown that it is absurd at their age to strive 
for distinction in one line of work while failing in 
another. If this is once brought home to the pupils 
and (to make an apparently absurd statement) they are 
made to feel that the measure of their success is not the 
subject in which they excel, but rather, the subjects in 
which they do not fail, we will have little occasion to 
discuss special programs or promotion by subjects. 

Experience of teachers and supervisors who have made 
a study of these special programs during the past several 
years seems to indicate that the boy who seeks promo- 
tion by subjects, fails in certain subjects not because he 
cannot pass in them, but because he does not really 
care to pass, being assured of promotion in the subjects 
in which he is most interested. 

Our junior high school subjects are not yet so different 
in difficulty and so highly specialized in appeal that the 
boy who can pass in one of the subjects cannot pass in 
the other subjects of the same grade if he really wants to 
do so. The time to give the individual attention to the 
pupil's needs therefore is not after he has failed in cer- 
tain subjects, but before he is permitted to fail. 

Seen from this angle, the special program is only 
an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff attempting to 
make amends for the injury which earlier neglect made 
possible. The time for individual attention is the first 
sign of failure in one subject of the pupil's daily pro- 



SPEED GROUPING IN THE SCHOOL 53 

gram. If we can convince the pupil that he must spend 
sufficient time on each subject to make his work in that 
subject satisfactory, we shall be building a fence around 
the top of the cliff and shall not need the ambulance at 
the bottom. 

It is an open question as to whether or not the pro- 
motion of the teacher with the class strengthens the 
administration of the elementary school. Certainly in 
the lower grades there is room for argument on either 
side. However, in the junior high school, where homo- 
geneous speed grouping is employed, every argument 
seems to indicate that the success of the school 
depends largely upon having the same teacher keep the 
same pupils from their time of entrance to their gradua- 
tion. 

We are trying to combine class instruction with 
individual consideration of pupils' aptitudes. We are try- 
ing to find out what the pupil is best fitted to do for his 
life work. We are trying to strengthen the child in those 
points of character or of school work where he is weak 
and, possibly, to keep him from a one-sided development 
in those lines where he is strong. Even to attempt this 
work it is necessary that the teacher become more inti- 
mately acquainted with the pupils of his class than under 
other types of school administration. The three years 
of junior high school is little enough time for the teacher 
to make this intimate personal acquaintance with the 
likes, dislikes, capacities and incapacities of the pupils 
whom he teaches. 

Any plan which proposes to change the pupils from one 
teacher to another in each successive subject is fore- 
doomed to failure in the realization of the junior high 
school ideal. Even when the teacher keeps the same class 
and the same pupils from year to year, success is by 



54 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

no means assured, but a decidedly lower percentage 
of failure is recorded in those classes where the. Teacher 
is given an opportunity to study his pupils during their 
entire junior high school course. 

Under the ideal plan, each successive entering group, 
after having been mentally tested and assigned to speed 
groups, will be given a certain number of official teachers 
— for example, one in English, one in mathematics, one 
in natural science, one in social science, one in foreign 
language, and these five teachers at least will remain as 
the official teachers of this group during its entire stay 
in the junior high school. Some one has called this the 
"wave idea," likening the successive entering groups 
to a succession of incoming waves, the pupils and teach- 
ers being promoted together until the pupils are gradu- 
ated, whereupon the teachers return to the group which 
is last admitted. 

In order to have the ideal plan work out in practice, 
it will be seen that we shall need an entering group of 
not less than 125 pupils, or if our classes must be larger, 
not less than 200, the first number giving five classes 
of 25 pupils each and the latter plan five classes of 40 
pupils each. x The point is, we need at least five entering 
classes to make our plan truly effective. For example, 
under the ideal plan a teacher of mathematics will meet 
an incoming group of five or six classes, all in the same 
grade, but different in ability, and keep these five or 
six classes under his personal instruction until, by suc- 
cessive promotions, they are graduated from the junior 
high school. 

The importance of this arrangement cannot be over- 
estimated. In the first place, the teacher having all the 
classes in the grade is best able to regulate their com- 
parative speeds. He is in a position to know how much 



SPEED GROUPING IN THE SCHOOL 55 

faster "division one" is working than "division two" 
and so on until the slowest moving division is reached. 
He is in a position to advise the transfer up or down of 
pupils who are showing marked differences from the 
average of their particular class. By covering all the 
work in mathematics from junior high school entrance 
to graduation, he is in the best position to make that 
growth a harmonious and effective development with no 
sharp breaks at promotion times. Morever, the pupils 
are not forced to re-adjust themselves to new person- 
alities and new methods of instruction, but can devote 

* . 

themselves to the subject-matter in uninterrupted pro- 
gression. 

In neighborhoods where the entering classes are so 
small that there is little opportunity of making ^homo- 
geneous groups large enough to warrant their assignment 
to an individual teacher there will be extreme difficulty 
in utilizing this new form of grading. 

Only the most expert teacher will be able to divide 
her one class of thirty or forty pupils into speed groups 
and then keep each group working at its maximum pos- 
sibilities. 

Wherever it is possible the better plan by far is to 
combine all the seventh grade pupils of the neighbor- 
hood into one large group which may be tested and then 
subdivided according to abilities. When the housing 
conditions permit, it is, of course, desirable to have one 
central junior high school, but where there are only 
limited accommodations in any one building, one or two 
alternatives might be employed. 

Our plan would be to have the pupils collected and 
tested at one central school and then to have the several 
speed groups, so discovered, assigned to various rooms in 
the buildings that could accommodate them. This would 



56 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

give in effect one junior high school with its classes 
seated in various neighboring schools. 

Another plan would be to have a succession of schools 
with five rooms, more or less, that could be utilized, 
admit all the seventh grade pupils that applied for 
junior high school admission at any one time. Thus 
the pupils applying for admission in September could be 
housed in School A, those admitted in February could be 
assigned to School B, the following September School 
C could receive the entrants and so on until School A 
again had room enough to admit an entering group. 

This plan gives a series of junior high schools, scattered 
through the neighborhood, each a separate entity keep- 
ing the same identical pupils from entrance to gradua- 
tion. In some ways this "wave" school possesses ad- 
vantages over all other types, even over the one large 
central junior high school. 

Finally, while nearly all the conspicuous benefits of 
speed grouping depend to a very large extent upon hav- 
ing an entering group so large that pupils may be 
arranged in definite official classes of nearly identical 
speed ability, yet the unusually able teacher of a small 
entering class should not be deterred from attempting 
some form of speed grouping. Let us admit that this 
will be a difficult proposition and one in which the poorly 
equipped teacher can hope for but small success. How- 
ever, with a skilled instructor, the small class may still 
be divided into speed groups-where the teacher may lay 
out work for the more able by which they can cover the 
grade work in advance of their less speedy fellow pupils. 
Even if four or five gain one year more of school in- 
struction, no small good will have been accomplished, 
while, on the other hand, those apparent laggards will be 
kept at work at a speed which suits their capacities and 



SPEED GROUPING IN THE SCHOOL 57 

so escape the stigma of failure and of repeating the. 
school grade, possibly only to fail again the next term. 

1. What three groups can I distinguish in my class as regards 

my pupils' rate of learning? 

2. In what bad mental habits is my quicker learning group 

being trained? 

3. What injustice may be done my slower learning group by 

forcing them to follow an unnatural rate of learning? 

4. What remedy can I suggest for the two undesirable 

situations just considered? 

5. Why do we need a long, carefully graded test to dis- 

tinguish our pupils' various rates of learning? 

6. How should I plan such a test in my specialty? 

7. What effect does speed grouping have upon school disci- 

pline ? 

8. What bearing has speed grouping upon promotion by 

subjects? 

9. What are the peculiar advantages in a junior high school 

of promoting the teacher with the class? 
10. How may some of the difficulties of speed grouping in a 
small school system be overcome? 



CHAPTER IV 
CHOOSING THE COURSE OF STUDY 

At the very outset some one may claim that whatever 
may be our theoretical choice, in reality we have little 
or no actual freedom in selecting our objects of study. 
Tradition and authority have laid down the rules as to 
what shall be studied in each succeeding school year. 

To this contention there is but one answer : if tradition 
and authority combine to forbid any change, by that 
very restriction a junior high school is made impossible. 
The very initiation of a junior high school implies free- 
dom to make such changes in the course of study as may 
be necessary in order to carry out the junior high school 
idea. 

Even with such reasonable freedom as may be granted 
by a liberal and progressive superintendent of schools 
and board of education, we still shall experience grave 
difficulties in selecting work that will meet our require- 
ments because of the apparently unavoidable conflict 
between the demands of current school work and those 
of the world outside the school. 

In the school world it is more important that a pupil 
know the principles of combustion and expansion of 
gases than that he be able to drive an automobile, 
but in the world of grown men the man who can run the 
car is the one on whom we prefer to rely. To be 
sure the best operator is the one who knows the theoreti- 
cal as well as the practical operation of his machine, but 
the schools are too often charged with indifference to the 
practice if the theory be to some degree appreciated. 

58 



CHOOSING THE COURSE OF STUDY 59 

Indeed, if a man purchase an automobile, as many 
hundreds of thousands have recently done, he often finds 
it harder to gain a knowledege of the practice than of 
the theory of how his car runs. This experience, 
with countless others taken at random from every human 
occupation, gives strength to the common belief that the 
knowledge given in school is of an inferior type to that 
acquired "on the job." 

To be sure it must be admitted that a select few, the 
super-engineers, designers and inventors, must know 
the theory to the highest possible degree, but for the man 
in the street such knowledge is neither necessary, nor 
even useful, if he be engaged in some other occupation 
than the one in question. 

We in the schools face a truly serious charge, too wide- 
spread to be ignored. It is a commonplace that most 
grown men and women would find genuine difficulty in se- 
curing even a passing mark on many of the tests now 
given to children in their seventh school year. Unless 
one be by the nature of his occupation forced to become 
reacquainted with the more detailed parts of his earlier 
school work, no small fraction of that earlier work seems 
to pass entirely out of mind with no appreciable loss. 
We are obliged to remember how to read, to write, to 
spell, to solve simple arithmetical problems, to recall in 
a general way the political divisions of our globe and es- 
pecially of our own country. Our appreciation and use- 
fulness as citizens is increased as we know more of the 
history ofifeur country and of the world's civilization. 
Yet most'fft the knowledge which mature men and women 
(who are not school teachers) find available for their 
daily work or pleasure appears to them to have been se- 
cured outside of school. 

As teachers whose very livelihood depends upon a 



60 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

knowledge of the things we teach, can it be that we have 
assumed an importance for much of our work that is far 
from its true importance in the world of affairs? 

To no small extent our pupils, particularly our adoles- 
cent pupils come to school imbued by their parents 
or their associates with more or less distrust of the value 
of what they are studying. All admit that "education" 
is a thing highly to be prized. All may be convinced that 
the seemingly impractical information gained at school 
is still practical when it comes promotion time — and 
yet there is an undercurrent of suspicion that the whole 
system is artificial; artificial barriers being set up to 
make useless knowledge a temporary necessity. 

Where there is so much smoke there may be some fire 
and it ill behooves us to dismiss from our minds a 
serious consideration of this conflict of ideas. On the 
contrary, particularly in the junior high school, we must 
strive so to select and impart the information in our 
hands that our pupils may be led to see its genuine 
worth if such exists. At the same time we will be ex- 
tremely careful to exclude from our work such exercises, 
topics, or discussions as we would find difficult to defend 
before an impartial non-school jury of peers. It may 
seem unfortunate that we have pupils whose further 
education will lie in other hands. If we were only free to 
plan all our pupils' work then we could plan for life and 
not for the next school year, some enthusiasts may say. 

Even so, our part is to make our pupils' next step 
secure. We must recognize our limits and make the 
most of the opportunity we have. Perhaps the situation 
will not seem as bad as it at first appears and we may 
yet be able to use as we must agree desirable teaching 
matter that will be worth remembering after school 
work is a thing of the past. 



CHOOSING THE COURSE OF STUDY 61 

For a beginning we need not concern ourselves greatly 
with a review of such elementary school work as is of 
little value for the new work just ahead. Here at least 
is a distinct gain. As for the elementary school work 
which we may select for completion, to this we may ap- 
ply our rules most rigorously. Is this work merely inter- 
esting to the teacher and entertaining to the pupil, bits of 
information which he will be called upon to review and 
re-study later on if he is ever to use it for his work or rec- 
reation? Or on the other hand will this proposed 
worK prove a real necessity in helping the pupil to find 
himself now and an essential to the not far distant work 
he will soon take up? 

Furthermore, we may find it possible with the free 
time secured by the elimination of elementary school 
reviews and of some elementary school topics to work 
out an approach to the required senior high school work 
that will allow us much of the added freedom that w T e 
seek. 

In default of mental tests that will predetermine each 
pupil's fitness for a certain line of work, we shall use so 
far as we must the method of trial and error. We shall 
give our pupil not simply information that will be useful, 
if for example he enters technical work, but information 
that he recognizes, at the time, as technical training, 
given him for the purpose of helping him to discover 
his own talent for more instruction in that same field. 
Similarly our emphasis w T ill again be given to the phase 
of the work that is particularly of commercial value — 
with the same purpose in view. Again there will be 
emphasis upon the scientific interests. In each case, as 
far as his mentality permits, the pupil is made fully and 
genuinely conscious of the fact that he is for the 
time concerned with information or training that is a 



62 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

sample of the work necessary for the success of some one 
of the greater divisions or human occupations, one of 
which he must ultimately select. It is not sufficient that 
we give such experiences in special training, no matter 
how thorough we may be about it, unless at the same time 
we make the recipient of the training a co-experimenter 
with us. If, however, we do this we will find unnumbered 
opportunities for this experience in the regular first year 
high school work. Indeed we may begin to believe that 
the pupil's experimental experience depends less upon our 
unrestrained selection of the subjects of study to be fol- 
lowed, than it does upon the keenness of the subject- 
teacher in disclosing to his class the varied nature of the 
experiences provided by his subject as they occur in his 
daily work. Each teacher must be able to analyze his 
own subject into those elements that will be of value in 
providing training in special fields other than his own. 

Too often, we must admit, the teacher of each high 
school subject proceeds almost entirely on the assump- 
tion (of which he himself may not be conscious) that 
his pupils are to become teachers of his specialty, when 
they begin their life work. Too often the teacher of 
English, mathematics, science, or what you choose, em- 
phasizes those things in his instruction that interest him 
as a teacher — that would be necessary for the training 
of one who planned to become a teacher himself. Too 
often the topics that have selective value for the pos- 
sible technician, tradesman, or physician, entirely escape 
his notice. However, our point here is that the mere 
selection of certain subjects for study does not of neces- 
sity secure for us all that we seek. This phase of our 
problem we will study at more length under our dis- 
cussion of the subjects we may teach. For the present 
we can add this one requirement. The subjects of study 




CHOOSING THE COURSE OF STUDY 63 

selected for our junior high school work must be capa- 
ble of furnishing such a variety of vocational experiences 
as will assist the pupil in his selection of the line of work 
and study upon which he will sooner or later specialize. 
At the same time we must not forget our earlier require- 
ment, that what we teach must be immediately useful 
either for its own sake or as a necessary step toward some 
other useful knowledge that is clearly within sight. 

Jhe success or failure of our junior high school idea is 
not dependent by any means, we now realize, upon the 
names our courses bear, nor wholly upon their content, 
but more and more upon the methods we employ in giv- 
ing the instruction in the subjects we select. 
"It will take but little study to prove where our chief 
demands lie. It will profit us little if we give our four- 
teen year old pupil knowledge that he will find useful 
at twenty- four if at the same time we fail to give him 
that information that will be necessary for his school 
success at sixteen. The nearer demands of our own work 
and of the work of the senior high school must be met 
first. On this point there can be no debate. Even where 
it may lead us to teach subjects which we firmly believe 
to be of no ultimate value, we must make our pupil's next 
step secure. Only as we are able to convert the higher 
schools to our point of view and so to a change in their 
requirements can we be truly free to select for study such 
subjects as will truly meet all the requirements of our 
avowed aims. That such changes are yearly being made 
in the requirements of the senior high schools and of the 
colleges should give us faith and hope that ultimately 
our ideals will everywhere prevail. Even with the re- 
strictive requirements of the higher schools as they stand, 
modified only in such minor details as we may locally 
secure, there is still a surprisingly great freedom of selec- 



64 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

tion permitted us if we remember that we are able to be- 
gin this advanced work two years earlier than under the 
"eight and four" plan we are giving up. Because the 
demands of the next higher school are the most com- 
pelling we shall choose the lines of work they will later 
require, but in our methods and in our approach we shall 
be more concerned with our newer demands which we 
have just considered. 

If our junior high schools are to give, as we plan them 
to give, a general introduction to later work in the shop, 
the office, or the senior school, our courses themselves 
must be general and introductory. 

As a basis for further discussion may we now consider 
the following lines of study in which the senior high 
school will expect to find our pupils reasonably well 
started before they leave our junior school. 

The senior high school, compelled usually in turn by 
the colleges, requires of us one year of training and in- 
formation in certain definite lines: — 

1. English (literature, essay writing, grammar) 

2. Mathematics (arithmetic and algebra or geometry) 

3. A foreign language (French, or German, or Spanish, or 

Latin) 

4. Science (natural science) 

5. History and civics (social science) 

and possibly also minor demands in 

0. Drawing, Music (appreciation, or technique, or both) 
7. Shop work or domestic science (manual training) 
3. Physical training and hygiene. 

Even if we choose we have no escape from the require- 
ments in at least the five major lines. Our freedom lies 
in accepting the divisions of the higher school work as we 
find them, but in working out our own approach to the 
requirements that lie ahead. 



CHOOSING THE COURSE OF STUDY 65 

In the first place if we are to help our pupils to find 
themselves we cannot do so by offering only that instruc- 
tion that is required by some one line of higher educa- 
tion, be that technical, scientific, academic or commercial. \ 
We must plan to provide experiences in all fields for ourj 
entering pupils. From the very start and without excep- 
tion during our first junior high school year we must pro- 
vide work in all required lines that will, so far as human 
ingenuity can fashion it, be valuable in helping the pupil 
not only to choose his life work wisely, but which will ac- 
tually help him to begin his training for it and by giving 
him information useful long after, as well as now. 
^^~ftlT~Speyer School several experimental combinations 
have been tried. In some subjects the completion of such 
elementary school work as was retained was planned for 
the end of the first junior high school year. In other sub- 
jects this work was supposed to be completed at the end 
of one and a half school years. 

As a result of many experiments the Speyer School 
teachers and supervisors came to agree that some por- 
tion of the work of the ninth school year (first high 
school year) should be begun in every subject on the 
very day the pupil enters. Similarly it was agreed, 
as the result of experiment, that some part of the so- 
called elementary school work should continue through- 
out the entire three years of the junior high school course. 

Varying to a certain extent with each general intro- 
ductory subject, the plan finally adopted may be best 
shown by the diagram below: 

As a matter of fact the divisions between the three 
kinds of work were never sharply drawn, but were so 
fused that the pupil was never aware that he was study- 
ing work that experts might separate into elementary, 
high, or original school work. 



66 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 



Our diagram will serve, however, if we remember that 
it applies to the approximate quantities of the three ele- 
ments fused in each year's work rather than to their 
method of presentation. 




7th Year 



8th Year 



9th Year 



A more accurate diagram though one less easily read 
would show the three school elements as three types of 
shading in which no definite lines of separation appear. 




7th Year 



8th Year 



9th Year 



In general it was found that there were many topics 
formerly reserved for the ninth school year that were 
easier of comprehension than some of the work pre- 
viously required for the seventh school year. Other 
things being equal, the best results were secured when 
all the work was graded on the basis of its ease of com- 
prehension by the pupil rather than upon any previous 
logical (or illogical) grouping. For a single example, in 
General Introductory Mathematics the simple use of al- 



CHOOSING THE COURSE OF STUDY 67 

gebraic x, y and z and the addition of simple algebraic 
sums (formerly never begun before the ninth school 
year), was found far easier than the finding of interest 
for years, months and days, formerly required in the 
seventh elementary school year. 

Indeed when one sits down with all the possible intro^ 
ductory work of the three junior high school years in 
some one general subject spread face up before him, 
it is amazing to discover how many of the so-called 
"harder subjects" owe their difficulty not so much to 
their inherent complexity as to their conventional method 
of presentation upon a strictly logical basis. 

On the other hand, although propositions reserved for 
the sixth book of our old style geometry if analyzed may 
prove to be easier than some of the examples in profit 
and loss in our seventh elementary school year, yet we 
would not go so far as to say these propositions should 
of necessity be taught in the earlier years simply because 
they are easy of comprehension. 

Having agreed in a general way that the old school 
plans should not be followed, but rather that we should 
take up the new work according to its ease of compre- 
hension, we find another qualification necessary. 

Unless the new information, so easily acquired, is 
itself of value in helping the pupil to comprehend more 
clearly the larger topic immediately under discussion, 
it has no place in that day's, work, nor in any day's work 
where it fails to be a useful or a usable addition to the 
child's sum of knowledge. Such new work as we intro- 
duce must appeal to the pupil not only as something in 
itself worth knowing;, but equallv as something really 
necessary for the better comprehension of the work 
either immediately at hand or at least just within reach. 

We may conclude then that in our junior high school, 



68 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

we will follow five major and two or more minor lines 
of work as follows: 

1. General Introductory English 

2. " " Mathematics 

3. " " Social Science 

4. " Natural Science 

5. " " Foreign Language 

and for the schools that require it 

6. General Introductory Art (Music — Drawing) 

7. Physical Training 

8. " " Shop work 

These first seven fields of work we shall discuss at 
length later in separate chapters, but here we may well 
make a rapid survey of the implications of our previous 
discussion. 

In each general introductory subject we will begin at 
once, in the seventh year, the work of the old ninth school 
year (first high school year) taking this new work gradu- 
ally. With it we will combine some parts of the old sev- 
enth and eighth school years adding such entirely new 
\jp)rk as may be advisable. We have already dismissed 
the idea of continuing the old style seventh and eighth year 
(elementary school) work and then adding a ninth year 
of straight high school work. Those few school systems 
that have tried to found their so called junior high 
schools on this latter plan have met with small success. 
Those that believe a junior high school can be formed 
by merely grouping the last two years of the elementary 
school and the first year of the high school in one build- 
ing or under one principalship show that they have abso- 
lutely no conception of the junior high school idea. 
No mere change in building or in supervision can work 
an improvement if the old seventh, eighth and ninth 
year plans of work continue unchanged. 



CHOOSING THE COURSE OF STUDY 69 

Having agreed upon our general lines of work and to 
a certain extent upon the general method to be followed 
we may consider the question of time allotment as an 
important factor in working out our new course of study. 

For the seventh school year, our first junior higff~ 
school year, all our pupils will follow a uniform course 
of study so far as subject-matter and time schedules are 
concerned. 

The work itself will be the same for all, but will not 
be as formerly a preparation for but one type (if any) 
of advanced work. 

. Our aim may be more evident if we say that our first 
year work will be uniform in its variety giving such 
experiences as will help the pupil to discover his own 
aptitudes and make, under guidance, his selections of 
one of the five courses that begin at the end of this 
(seventh) school year. 

The time schedule for the junior high school year may 
be most economically worked out if every one of the 
seven subjects of study is assigned a class period every 
day. 

Table I 

Seventh year: Weekly Schedule 



General Introductory English 




5 (+D 


It it 


Mathematics 




5 


It it 


Social Science 




5 (-1) 


It It 


Natural Science 




5 


it It 


Foreign Language 




5 


tl It 


Art 




5 


it a 


Physical Training 




5 




Total per 


iods 


35 



To be sure, such a schedule takes every single period 
of a thirty-five period week, but it is still possible to 



70 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

arrange a weekly schedule of recitations and home study 
periods that will not prove a burden to the health or prog- 
ress of any normal child. 

Physical training as required by law in New York 
State comes once a day and acts as a recess from the 
more confining work in other subjects. At least one ex- 
cursion each week lessens the amount of recitation work 
by two periods. The work in introductory art (drawing 
and music) lightens the weekly schedule by four periods 
of unprepared work. The class room period in oral 
English is no burden, but rather a period of enjoyment. 
One assembly period taken in turn from the major 
subjects English, mathematics, social science, natural 
science, lightens the total week in these subjects by 
one period a week. One period of music is always held 
in assembly for music appreciation or chorus work. 
Finally in order that the nightly schedule of home work 
preparation may be equally arranged some subjects may 
be required on certain days to give a study period (un- 
prepared lesson) instead of recitation period for one of 
their five periods for that work. 

Our weekly schedule is then lightened as shown be- 
low: — 

Total school periods weekly 35 

Unprepared periods — 

Physical training 5 

Introductory Art 4 

Oral English 1 

Assembly 1 

Excursion 2 

Subject study period... 2+ 15 + 

Balance prepared periods 20 

This leaves a schedule of twenty periods of class room 
recitation which may further be lightened if necessary 



CHOOSING THE COURSE OF STUDY 



71 



by the substitution of more subject study periods to 
take the place of prepared work. 

However, four periods of home study assigned on the 
basis of one half hour's home study for each subject 
as a maximum does not seem too hard a program. 

A total of two hours maximum home study appears to 
be a reasonable requirement, if the teacher understands 
that the maximum is not to be the rule but the extreme 
limit. One and one half hours' work is the rule at Speyer 
School. 

Allowance must be made as early as the eighth school 
year for the progressive differentiation of the junior 
high school leading to the various high school courses 
that lie ahead. 

In English the Literature and the Oral English may re- 
main the same, but Written English may have a dis- 



SEVENTH SCHOOL YEAR EIGHTH SCHOOL YEAR NINTH SCHOOL YEAR 

Business correspondence 
Business letters 



Simple business 
correspondence 



Commercial forms 
Advertisements 



§ / & Friendly letters 



General written 
English 

Friendly letters 
School topics 
Choice of.life work 



School content 



Scientific basis 



Essays, Reports 



Book reviews, short stories 



\^g Friendly letters Articles or reports 



explaining machines or processes 



Letters about the Formal letters - asking information, 



trade studied 



ordering supplies, submitting estimates 



tinctly commercial trend for those who will later enter a 
commercial high school. Similarly, for those who will 



72 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 



enter a technical, or vocational course, the Written Eng- 
lish work will be closely correlated with the work ahead. 
In mathematics this differentiation will consist in 
substituting introductory accounting (book-keeping) 
for the algebra and geometry of the general course for 
the pupils who are beginning commercial work while for 
vocational pupils the emphasis will be placed upon ap- 
plied arithmetic, algebra and geometry as used in the 
shop or trade the pupil expects to enter. 



SEVENTH SCHOOL YEAR 


V 
1 

'1/ 

C 

\% 

°\ 


EIGHTH SCHOOL YEAR 
Introductory accounting 


NINTH SCHOOL YEAR 
Advanced Bookkeeping 




f Business Arith., Banking 
Geometry, Algebra 


Accounting, graphic 
representation 

Geometry, Algebra 


General Introductory 
Mathematics 


p Advanced Arith. 
Geometry, Algebra 


Introduction 
Geometry, Algebra 




^Graphic work 
^Advanced arithmetic 

k Applied arith. 


Logarithms, slide rule 
Shop mathematics 



In Social Science the general introduction to a history 
of the world and of the United States in particular, will 
be continued, except that for commercial and vocational 
pupils more emphasis will be laid upon the economic 
and industrial phases of the development of civilization 
than upon the acts of political or military leaders. This 
study of industrial evolution will be followed by all of 
the pupils except those who are preparing for the aca- 
demic, or scientific, high school courses. For all pupils 



CHOOSING THE COURSE OF STUDY 



73 



of whatever course the new course in community civics 
will be the same. 

SEVENTH SCHOOL YEAR EIGHTH SCHOOL YEAR NINTH SCHOOL YEAH 
Ancient and medieval Medieval and modern 



/ myths and legends 

#/| 

T/Cj 

General Intro. /ALL American History- 


exploration and 
settlement 

American History 


Social Science \ Community Civics 

il. 

\ Industrial emphasis 


Community Civics 
Industrial evolution 



Inventions - Economics 



The necessities of the weekly time schedule will pre- 
vent all vocational pupils from continuing in general 
natural science after the first year and will make it 
difficult for commercial pupils unless they are exception- 
ally able to continue with natural science in addition to 
a foreign language and typewriting. 

SEVENTH SCHOOL YEAR EIGHTH SCHOOL YEAR NINTH SCHOOL YEAR 
None None 



&/ 


'(Typewriting) 


(Typewriting) 


General Intro. / 


Gen. Physics & 


Gen. Biology & 


Natural Sciencey^ ca d em i c 


Chem. Science 


Bacterial Sci. 


\ScientiJic 












"\ 


None 


None 



( Shop practice ) 



( Shop practice ) 



Stenography will not be taught to those commercial 
pupils who will get that training later on in the commer- 



74 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 



cial high school, but commercial pupils whose school 
training will terminate with the end of their junior high 
school period will be permitted to take stenography in- 
stead of a foreign language. 



SEVENTH SCHOOL YEAR 



EIGHTH SCHOOL YEAR 



NINTH SCHOOL YEAR 



French or German 
or Spanish 



French or German 
or Spanish 



or stenography 



or stenography 



General Intro. 








Foreign Language 


/Academic or 


Latin or 


Latin or 


Basis English and 


\ Scientific 


French or German 


French or German 


Latin or French 


\ 










None 


None 




(Shop work) 


(Shop work) 



A series of diagrams may show the -general plan of 
progressive differentiation. 

For the eighth and ninth school years the general dis- 
tribution of time for the differentiated courses may 
work out more or less in accordance with the plan given 
below in which the periods per week are shown under 
five possible lines of work. 



CHOOSING THE COURSE OF STUDY 



75 



Periods Per Week Eighth and Ninth School Years 



English 

Mathematics 
Social Science . . . 
Natural Science. . 
Foreign Language 

Typewriting 

Stenography 

Introductory Art. 
Physical Training 
Shop Work 



Aca- 


Scien- 


Com- 


Busi- 


demic 


tific 


mercial 


ness 


High 


High 


High 


Employ- 


School 


School 


School 


ment 


6 


6 


6 


5 


5 


5 


5 


10 


5 


5 


5 


5 


5 


5 






5 


5 


5 








5 


5 

5 


4 


4 


4 




5 


5 


5 


5 


35 


35 


35 


35 



Voca- 
tional 
Employ- 
ment 



5 
15 



35 



If we really believe that our pupils should be chiefly 
concerning now with acquiring information that will still 
be worth while ten years from now, we might be led to 
select for study subjects that are entirely beyond their 
mental range. 

Our problem first is to select for study such work as 
will be necessary and useful at the very time it is ac- 
quired in helping the pupil to find himself. In addition 
to its present value, however, the subjects of study must 
be necessary and useful for understanding the new work 
that lies just ahead. Finally, if our subjects of study 
are to really fill our requirements they must have in them 
elements that will be necessary and useful to the pupil 
many years after he has studied them in school. 

Our junior high school with eyes facing forward helps 
pupils to find themselves and to rely increasingly upon 



76 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

themselves in studying willingly subject matter of un- 
questioned value to the student both when it is studied 
and in after life as well. 

1. What is the attitude of the man on the street toward 

school work and why does this attitude persist? 

2. Why may a teacher easily come to assume the importance 

of his specialty? 

3. Why cannot the junior high school plan its work on the 

sole basis of its permanent usefulness when school work 
is completed? 

4. Explain the methods we must employ in finding our pu- 

pils' fitness for special lines of work. 

5. What false emphasis may I as a teacher often place upon 

the topics I teach in my specialty? 

6. Of what significance to my pupils is the immediate use- 

fulness of the subject I teach? 

7. What major lines of work are we obliged to follow in the 

junior high school? 

8. What must we aim to do in each major line besides giving 

our pupil the subject matter that the senior high school 
may require? 

9. On what basis should the graded sequence of topics in 

each subject be arranged? 

10. Plan a weekly time schedule for each junior high school 

year. 

11. Defend the schedule planned. 



CHAPTER V 
GENERAL METHOD IN THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 

PART I — RATIONALIZATION 

Many years ago a teacher of Latin in the room ad- 
joining mine was accustomed to interest his first year 
high school pupils by insisting upon the value of a study 
of Latin for all occupations his pupils might follow in 
after life. Over and over again he would assure his 
pupils that no matter what they did when they left 
school they would do that thing better if they faith- 
fully studied their Latin lessons for him. I have heard 
him assure boys in his class that they would be better 
office boys, better salesmen, better electricians — and the 
girls that they would be better teachers, clerks, or house- 
wives if they would apply themselves to a study of 
Latin. This assurance was given not on one day in the 
term, but at some time during practically every Latin 
lesson, day in and day out, until by mere insistence with- 
out argument he built up a faith in the value of Latin 
that secured the first place for that subject in the pu- 
pils' minds. 

However far this teacher may have let his faith dic- 
tate his facts in these assurances, he at least had found 
one fundamental basis for high school instruction. Ju- 
nior high school pupils have an abiding interest in doing 
better the things they will do anyway, however much they 
may disregard their daily lessons. 

77 



78 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

If as a result of our training, our pupils actually do 
better those things they will do anyway then we feel 
that our efforts for them have not been in vain. 

Too often, we must admit, boys and girls of adoles- 
cent age who are permitted to ■ shirk their lessons and to 
evade every school responsibility, are becoming more 
or less surely trained to do increasingly worse the things 
they will do anyway. 

Let us admit that our schools do not of necessity train 
better workers, that our subjects of study do not by their 
intrinsic, undemonstrated worth, work improvement in 
our pupils' subsequent careers, and we are in a better 
position to make our daily efforts for our pupils' welfare 
unquestionably worth their while. v - 

Among our entering pupils we always find some who 
in the parlance of the faculty-room simply "eat up" their 
work. It makes little or no difference to these pupils 
what subjects they may be called upon to study — let 
it only be known what the teacher requires and they 
will set themselves steadfastly to the accomplishment of 
their task. Whatever be the motives that impel such 
a group to industry, their assiduitj^ is an undeniable 
fact. This group of earnest students is always rated high 
in school work, always successful at promotion time 
and usually successful, though by no means always so, 
in their work on leaving school. It is scarcely possible, 
however, for any teacher to take great credit to him- 
self for the training of such pupils — they are what they 
are by no virtue of the school or its instruction, but by 
a heredity for which the school can neither be praised 
nor blamed. 

By far the larger group of adolescent children come 
to school at least partly under protest. They welcome the 
holidays and feel no sense of loss if their work moves 



GENERAL METHODS 79 

slowly. Every lesson they are assigned is more or less 
a disagreeable thing to be gotten out of the way with as 
little effort as possible. These pupils may like their 
school, appreciate their teachers and for the most part 
do, their daily work in a satisfactory manner, but they are 
rarely, if ever, eager to spend their free time in school 
work. 

There may be, deep in the hearts and minds of these 
pupils, some faith that in some way, to some extent, they 
will be more successful men and women as a result of 
their school training, but this faith is scarcely strong 
enough to serve as a strong motive for daily work. 

These young adolescents are none too ready to accept 
such a faith to explain the incongruities they daily ob- 
serve between the world of work and the world of study. 
If we would secure the industry we ask, we must take 
pains to show our pupils the reasonableness of our daily 
assignments in terms of whatever work our pupils hope to 
undertake on leaving school. 

From his superior position, knowledge and authority, 
the teacher of each subject, enthusiastic in his faith in 
that subject, looks down in disgust at what he may regard 
as his slacker pupil. For the teacher who earns his living 
by teaching mathematics, for example, there can be no 
doubt as to the value of mathematics in making for his 
own success. For him mathematics is food, clothing 
and shelter. Gradually he comes to believe that the pu- 
pil who does not regard mathematics as a thing worth 
while has some ill-defined, but undoubted moral delin- 
quency. Yet if he be a teacher of unusual merit he may 
be able to get the pupil's point of view. 

For the pupil the period in mathematics is merely a 
small, pleasant or unpleasant, incident in his school day. 
The pupil will be fed, clothed and sheltered whether or 



80 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

not his work in mathematics is up to the school standard. 
Neither his parents nor his playmates will think much 
more or less of him if his daily work is good or bad. No 
pupil wants to be left behind when his class is promoted 
— no pupil can be said to enjoy failure — yet there is 
always the question as to which is, after all, the greater 
loss, the daily loss of time to read interesting books, 
to play interesting games, to join interesting playfellows, 
or such loss of prestige as may follow his failure to be 
promoted. The usual result is a compromise by which 
the pupil endeavors to get the maximum of free time for 
play with the minimum of school work for promotion. 

Can we blame these children for such a choice as they 
really make. If children were able to judge relative val- 
ues as well as their parents there would be little or no use 
for either schools or teachers. It is because children are 
children, for the time an only partly civilized race, that 
they need instruction at home and in school. 

Children, when wholly free to choose, by no means 
always select the easier way, but usually, if not unfail- 
ingly, do select the more pleasant way to spend an hour, 
a week or a month. In the old school days the birch rod 
made sure that the path of duty was always more pleas- 
ant. School work was not made more attractive, but 
shirking school work was made more painful. 

Even though the birch rod may be relegated to the 
rubbish heap our best boarding schools control their 
pupils' industry by no very different method. The boy 
or girl who shirks is not actually made to suffer physical 
pain perhaps, but the graded loss of school privileges, 
the confinement to the study hall, the exclusion from 
the athletic teams, the loss of holidays and similar de- 
privations are all designed to make the way of the 
transgressor artificially hard. 



GENERAL METHODS 81 

In our public day high schools we have neither the 
birch rod, nor the twenty-four hour control by which we 
can make the disagreeable daily lessons more pleasant by 
a manipulated comparison which makes the avoidance 
of these lessons still more disagreeable. There remains 
then for us only the possibility of making our school work 
so reasonable that the doing of it will actually be more 
pleasant than the leaving of it undone. 

We can avoid, if we wish, taking sides upon the merits 
of the effort vs. interest controversy if we frankly admit 
that we have no way of securing our pupils' efforts ex- 
cept by leading the pupils to take an interest in their 
work. While we may invent and employ upon our shirk- 
ers all legitimate penalties and deprivations, we can 
never hope to get a high degree of industry in our classes 
as a whole except by helping each individual to get some 
actual satisfaction, some genuine pleasure, from doing 
the school tasks we constantly propose. 

To return to our Latin teacher, though he may have 
sadly stretched the truth in his efforts to secure industry 
in the study of Latin, nevertheless he had found a 
fundamental interest for his, and for all, school work. 
If pupils can be convinced, and usually they are not 
convinced, that as a result of school study they will do 
better those desirable things (often to them wholly un- 
related to school work) which they will ultimately do 
anyway, the question of interest vs. effort settles itself. 

There is for us then of necessity but one thing to be 
done to make all our work appear a preparation, as 
it ought to be, for doing better whatever worthy under- 
takings the boy or girl will later enter upon. It will not be 
sufficient for us to tell our pupils that it is enough for 
them to know that the allwise school authorities have 
put these chosen subjects in the school curriculum because 



82 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

they are necessary to the pupil's future success. Indeed it 
will be hard for us as teachers of science to include all the 
school's grammar in such a divine-right group. Equally 
hard will it be for the new teacher of English to give even 
semi-divine sanction to all the intricacies of algebraic 
surds, yet it is scarcely possible for us to claim for our 
one subject, our specialty, the sanction which we our- 
selves may deny the work in other lines. 

If for a time in planning our work we put from our 
minds our real pupils and pretend that our fellow teachers 
are the pupils of our class, we may be aided in discovering 
those things in our own work which actually have un- 
questioned educative value. Indeed unless we plan for- 
ever to alternately bully and cajole our pupils to their 
work, we must have aims and reasons that will stand 
the criticism of our fellow teachers of other subjects. 

If we accept Professor Briggs's statement of the guid- 
ing principle of our junior high school work — and no 
better statement has yet been made by any one — we 
must not be content with simply selecting and assign- 
ing the school work which we as individuals believe will 
make- our pupils do better the things they will do anyway, 
but we must never forget that until we have convinced 
our pupils that our assignments will have this ultimate 
value, we have done only half our own work as teachers. 

So it is worth while for us as teachers to spend no 
end of time and effort as our lessons progress to make 
a case for our subject and to remember, no matter how 
distasteful such a position, we are still lawyers for the 
defense, in the trial of our subject, with our pupils sitting 
as both judge and jury. Therefore if we would gain the 
verdict which will secure our pupils' industry as a re- 
sult of the satisfaction they will get from doing their 
daily work, we must spare no pains and lose no op- 



GENERAL METHODS 83 

portunity to make our case strong in our pupils' minds. 

Time is not wasted that is spent in convincing our 
pupils that they will benefit directly from what we will 
try to teach them. At the beginning of our work we 
may spend almost half the time in making plain the 
usefulness of our subject and we must never allow this 
side of our work to suffer from neglect. 

We know as experienced teachers that it is fatal 
to begin any new work with a review of what has been 
previously covered, no matter how well or how ill that 
earlier work may have been done. We know that the 
way to kill interest in something new is to rub the bloom 
off the peach by too much preparation. So in each new 
subject and each new phase of an older subject we take 
up the new work as we reach it with practically no hesi- 
tation or delay. We can never hope to make a case 
for our subject by a single general appeal which will 
secure an acceptance of our contentions once and for 
all. The converts of our first months are back-sliders 
of the second month and so to be successful our appeal 
must be continuous. Not that our pupils do not gain 
much by taking up a new subject in the proper spirit, 
but that the mere beginning well is no sure promise of 
enduring well. Therefore from day to day we must make 
unfailing and studied reference to the value of our sub- 
ject even though it appear we do so most casually. 

What may appear to the class almost as an aside — 
something merely noted in passing — may be a most vital 
point in the teacher's daily preparation. Some refer- 
ence beginning "You will use this .-..," "You will find 
this . . . very necessary when . . ."or "This infor- 
mation (ability, skill) will be very helpful when . . ." 
will often be the means of saving for the school some 
doubting Thomas whose faith in the real value of your 



84 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

subject may, all unknown to you, have almost reached 
the vanishing point. 

Of course we all believe in the value of working, if not 
indeed always from a sense of duty, yet not uncommonly 
from that motive. If we can build up this sense of duty 
we owe it to ourselves and to our pupils to do so. 

Nothing that we have tried and are trying to do to 
make our work appear of unquestioned ultimate value 
need keep us from trying to develop that ethical sense 
which will lead our pupils to take honest pride in work 
well done from a pure sense of duty without the motive 
of self interest. Nevertheless it is wrong for us to assume 
that while as teachers we would be morally delinquent 
in failing to teach the subject for which we are engaged, 
our pupils in turn may be equally delinquent morally, if 
they refuse to study from a sense of duty alone, the work 
we assign. 

The one controlling thought in junior high school 
method is reasonableness. In this it departs from the 
practice in both elementary and high schools. In the 
elementary schools the compulsory education laws com- 
pel attendance and provide pupils who cannot long es- 
cape or avoid the tasks assigned. In the high schools, 
on the other hand, the pupils usually are obliged to leave 
school (as they do in such numbers) to avoid the assump- 
tion that they are in school to do the tasks assigned with- 
out questioning their value. 

The junior high school alone assumes the burden of 
proof, if it is true to its ideals. The junior high school 
teachers alone voluntarily relinquish their right to teach 
their subjects by virtue of their position of temporary 
authority and seek rather to justify before their pupils 
in the classroom the right of their subjects to the pupils' 
interest, effort and application on the ground of the 



GENERAL METHODS 85 

reasonableness of the work assigned. The junior high 
school pupils alone are granted, and indeed are urged to 
assume, the right to question the reasonableness of the 
work they are daily asked to do and by being convinced 
of its present and future value are led to work more 
intelligently and with greater self-benefit than the pupils 
of any other type of school below the college or univer- 
sity. 

PART II — ARTICULATION 

As a part of any discussion in General Method may 
•come a consideration of the general attitude of the junior 
high school teacher toward the work his pupils will 
:soon take up in the senior high school. 

Unless there is complete sympathy and a full compre- 
hension of the aims and purposes of each school, the 
pupils are apt to suffer by the break at the end of the 
ninth school year as much as they now may suffer in 
going from the elementary to the high school. 

Because a great deal is being said and written about 
"the "articulation" of the junior and senior high school 
a brief consideration of some of the most important 
factors that experiment and experience have shown nec- 
essary may not be out of place at this time. 

The word "articulation," often applied to the relation 
of the junior and senior high schools, implies the join- 
ing of things more or less distinct though as closely 
"articulated" as the arm and the body in human anatomy. 

A better picture of the ideal relation of the junior and 
senior high schools, if taken from anatomy, is the way 
our muscles and tendons unite. Innumerable microsco- 
pic strands of connective tissue from innumerable muscle 
fibres are extended to a point beyond which there is no 



86 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

longer muscle tissue but only tendons — yet the tendon 
reaches and is attached to every part of the muscle. 

So we may picture the ideal relationship of the senior 
and junior schools — the aims, purposes and courses of 
study so closely bound that even specialists cannot tell 
where one leaves off and the other begins. The separa- 
tion in years and in buildings we should aim to make 
of no more actual significance than is the length of the 
sleeve to the arm muscles it covers. 

The junior high school is primarily a finding and a 
sorting school — here the tastes, aptitudes and capacities 
of pupils are to have an intellectual try-out, based upon 
real first hand experience with some of the school work 
that lies just ahead. 

No longer must children make their selection of a high 
school, or of a high school course, a matter of chance, 
of faith, or of blind obedience. No longer must children 
enter a high school first and find out what is taught 
there afterwards. 

There should be in the junior high school, which is a 
"finding and sorting" school, courses of study that are 
finding and sorting courses. 

The lines of work that lie just ahead are not merely 
studied on the map, as formerly, but the pupil actually 
travels in person along each of the main lines of advanced 
study, if but for a very short distance, yet far enough 
in most cases to show the pupil, his instructors and his 
parents, where that pupil's talents and aptitudes lie. 

I. First among the essentials for the perfect and har- 
monious cooperation of the two schools — or the two 
phases of one school as they really are — is the plan- 
ning of courses of study (or if we modernize our termin- 
ology "curricula") that enable the pupil to make his 
successive steps of progressive differentiation and special- 



GENERAL METHODS 87 

ization in his work come as the result of actual first 
hand experience in his class room. 

It is reasonable to expect that within a very few years 
we shall find in the junior high schools a plan consisting 
of one, two or three years of work along these principal 
lines : 

1. General Introductory Mathematics 

2. General Introductory Natural Science 

3. General Introductory Social Science 

4. .General Introductory English 

a. Magazines 

b. Newspapers 

c. Classics 

5. General Introductory Foreign Language 

6. General Introductory Art 

a. Drawing — Manual Training 

b. Music — Vocal 

7. General Introductory Body-training 

It is unnecessary to call attention here to the abso- 
lute necessity of having these courses or curricula that 
are anywhere to be locally administered — planned either 
by one mind, or by a group of minds in conference, to 
the end that: 

1. Each course shall first of all embody the principles 
of unity in purpose, and grading in difficulty, and that 

2. Each shall be, as far as humanly possible, made 
up of selected bits of reasonable adolescent experience 
rather than of selected excerpts from secondary text 
books. 

II. A second essential to a perfect and harmonious 
union of the two phases of secondary school work is unity 
of supervision. 

It has been repeatedly urged in reports and surveys that 
junior high school administrators should be experienced 
as actual teachers in both high and elementary school 



S8 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

work. Where it is possible to secure supervision of this 
type, no better guarantee of unity in supervision is nec- 
essary. 

Our difficulties here (and they have been and still 
are most discouraging) have arisen from a conscious 
or unconscious partisanship of the supervisor, based 
upon his previous experience as a teacher. There is no 
question but that such a partisanship works injury to 
the junior pupils, no matter on what side the super- 
visor's preferences lie. 

The suggested appointment of subject-supervisors in 
the major lines of work — Mathematics, English, Social 
Science, Natural Science, etc., etc., is open to the same 
objection. Where are those high school supervisors to 
be found who combine an appreciation of their subject 
with an appreciation of an elementary school child's 
mind? The supervisor may know Biology but does he 
know boys? 

Time, however, will cure and is curing this defect, as 
the places at the top become filled with those teachers 
who are finding their way to promotion through the 
junior high schools. We are discovering that the teacher 
that is able to teach successfully in a junior high school 
is equally able to teach successfully in a senior school. 

As a second factor in supervision the uniform com- 
pulsory ninth year examination has been proposed. Such 
a proposal, while it may seem harsh, still if modified by 
mutual agreement to cover a series of examinations drawn 
by both junior and senior high school teachers in 
conference, has niuch to merit consideration. This 
certainly would be one way of forcing continuity of 
instruction and might, if not abused, lead to a better 
articulation of work. But on the other hand, it might 
as easily lead to the well known abuses — cramming for 



GENERAL METHODS 89 

the examinations, teaching for the subject only and not 
for the pupil, frightening away the less persistent and 
often killing off the more able along with the less fit. 

Promotion by subject from the one school to the other 
may be highly desirable when possible, but frequently 
this is not possible because ninth year subjects are not 
repeated in many senior high schools. 

Unity in plan and unity in supervision are, after all, 
but means to an end. Even with perfect unity so far 
secured we have not yet reached the pupil nor do we 
reach him until we enter the class-room in the person 
of the class-room teacher. We must admit that no plan 
and no supervision can do much more than to make this 
desirable unity or continuity of instruction possible and 
attractive. 

III. The cooperative efforts of the teachers in both 
schools is absolutely required to make the possible become 
the actual. The one greatest enemy of the perfect union 
of the junior and senior high schools is a lack of acquain- 
tance of the class room teachers in the one school with 
those in the other. From this ignorance springs distrust, 
and recriminations that lead us only into greater estrange- 
ment. 

The one best means of curing this mutual ignorance 
and distrust in class room instruction is a remedy as 
simple and easy of application as it is efficacious. The 
actual, living unity and continuity in and between ju- 
nior and senior high schools can be secured neither by 
printed plan nor by careful supervision as successfully as 
by compelling the teachers of the two schools to become 
acquainted with each other's work. In a word, this rem- 
edy is to make compulsory and without the possibility 
of escape, a personal, first-hand acquaintance of 
the work, the aims, the methods of the junior and of the 



90 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

senior high school class-room teachers, the one with the 
other. 

No other thing can replace this mutual knowledge 
secured by actual exchange of visits; no lectures, ad- 
dresses, articles or conferences can be substituted for the 
visit in person. No other thing can claim to approach in 
importance this mutual observation of work and mutual 
study of purposes. Unfortunately, in many communities 
this exchange of visits will never be accomplished until 
it is laid down as an unavoidable duty. Hence, our insist- 
ence on the compulsory and serious nature of this 
exchange. 

From this exchange of visits comes first a better appre- 
ciation by the teachers of both schools of the subject- 
matter to be taught in the other school. This, of neces- 
sity, will lead at first to a greater conformity of the 
junior high school to the senior requirements. The first 
and foremost thing that the junior high boy or girl must 
do is to survive in the senior school. Unless there is 
"survival" there can be no continuity in fact. 

However well taught and well trained in other lines 
a junior high school pupil may be, unless that pupil 
is able to sustain himself in the entering term of the 
senior high school all is lost. 

The junior high school teacher who is preparing pu- 
pils for the tenth school year must be compelled, not 
merely invited, compelled to observe high school work in 
that year, must be compelled to study the situations 
her pupils will be ultimately forced to face. These 
visits must not be optional, perfunctory, casual, but 
required as of as great, or greater, importance than 
any work she may undertake in her own class room in 
her own junior school. 

During the initial years of any junior high school's 



GENERAL METHODS 91 

existence and thereafter until a high degree of con- 
tinuity is secured, not less than one day each month and 
preferably more at the beginning, should, by official di- 
rection, be required of each junior teacher for personal 
observation and study in the senior high school. 

But though the burden lies chiefly upon the shoulders 
of the junior high school teacher there is still some obli- 
gation on the other side. If, by visits and personal ob- 
servations, the senior high school teacher becomes con- 
vinced that the junior pupils are really being well taught 
(though still in some respects not as he himself would 
teach them) there will come conviction that if these pu- 
pils do not at first make a complete adjustment, possibly 
the fault may not be wholly that of the junior high school. 
The senior teacher as a result of his visits will be led 
to see that possession of a college degree after the com- 
pletion (many years back) of a few elective courses in 
his specialty does not of necessity give him and his sim- 
ilarly fortunate fellows the copyright on all present 
and future knowledge in his chosen line of work. If he 
has studied and learned, others may still do so, if they 
have not done so already. The assumption that one who 
has worked in other fields for years back may never 
approach him or his department teachers in either knowl- 
edge or technique, is a barrier to continuity that can 
only be removed by repeated compulsory investigations. 

However, instruction that is faulty in subject-matter 
may more often be charged against the junior school. 
When faults in methods of teaching are discovered the 
blame is quite apt to be shifted to the senior teacher's 
shoulders. 

In Annapolis, where our Navy officers are trained, 
there used to be, and possibly still is, the custom of ap- 
pointing as instructors, officers who were specialists and 



92 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

experts each in his chosen field. The young middies 
then came to their class rooms after a night of 
study prepared to prove to the instructor that they 
had mastered the tasks assigned to them the day before. 
The officer-teacher was not expected to "teach" as we 
understand the term; instead he questioned, quizzed,, 
probed and tested the self -education of the students be- 
fore him. 

We all have seen a high school period conducted on no 
very different basis. The complaints that the elementary 
school product does not know how to study, rises from 
such a class room, while the elementary school answer 
that the high school teacher does not know how to teach 
finds justification in this same room. Both charges are 
undoubtedly founded on fact. 

However, as a result of personal visits, more and more 
there grows upon the high school teacher an apprecia- 
tion of the fact that the mere presence of a new pupil 
in his room does not justify his putting that pupil 
at once on the defensive to prove that he should not 
be marked a failure. More and more the high school 
teacher becomes convinced that his duty is not to pre- 
suppose a vital interest, but rather to create one, if that 
is possible, by his own methods of daily instruction. 
Convince the high school teacher through his required 
visits that a pupil is able to go on and you force him to 
the conclusion that to lead the pupil on is his bounden 
duty. 

Following this better knowledge of the subject-matter 
by the one, and of the methods by the other, comes a sym- 
pathetic understanding of each other's difficulties that 
makes for continuity in work such as no mere " super- 
vision" (whether by superintendent, principal or super- 
visor-specialist) could ever hope to secure. 



GENERAL METHODS 93 

In summary, we may secure continuity in secondary 
work by: 

1. Continuity of Plan: secured by having one man, or one 

group of men in conference, prescribe the work in any 
given locality, for both junior and senior schools. 

2. Then by building on continuity in plan: by Continuity of 

Supervision secured by having as supervisors those who 
have had experience as class room teachers in both 
elementary and high schools. 

3. Then building on continuity in plan and supervision: by 

Continuity of Instruction, secured by compulsory fre- 
quent exchanges of visits (and so of ideas) by the class 
room teachers in the two schools. 

In advance of complete agreement in matters of ad- 
ministration, a great deal can be accomplished by the 
teachers of the two types of schools, if they will get to- 
gether and agree upon what is both just and reasonable 
in the matter of ninth year work. 

In New York City twenty-seven junior high schools 
were organized within a very short period of time, in 
many cases with a complete staff and in other cases with- 
out a corps of teachers prepared to conduct the courses 
in special branches, such as French, algebra and high 
school science. While this condition was temporary and 
the teaching positions were quickly filled with those who 
had the requisite professional training, nevertheless, even 
without specialists, the earnest and generous cooperation 
of the New York high school teachers accomplished won- 
ders for a better union of the two schools. Committees 
made up of one-half of- high school and one-half of inter- 
mediate school teachers handed in reports in which there 
was unanimous agreement concerning the work of the 
ninth school year in all the major subjects. Through 
these agreements, on the one hand, the junior high 



94 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

school teachers know what they are expected to 
furnish (and what they agree to furnish) in the 
line of preparation, while on the other hand, the high 
school teachers know what they may expect to receive 
and what they have agreed to accept as satisfactory. 

Where it is possible for any school district, large or 
small, to secure results such as these from voluntary work 
on the part of its teachers, much that has been suggested 
from the standpoint of administration will be entirely 
unnecessary. 

It may be that the senior school will ultimately ab- 
sorb the first year of what is now college work and so 
become what may be known as a junior college. Junior 
colleges are already being organized in several states, 
and, while not favored by some existing four year col- 
leges, still appear to be demonstrating their fitness to 
survive in the face of opposition. 

The indications seem to be that the junior college 
and the junior high school, are innovations which meet 
a well-founded demand so that they are bound sooner or 
later to be permanent parts of every complete public 
school system. 

However, if the junior high schools succeed, their suc- 
cess will depend more upon their improvements in gen- 
eral methods of instruction than upon any other innova- 
tion no matter how prominent these other factors may 
seem to be. 

QUESTIONS 

1. What good effects may result if a' pupil is convinced that a 

subject of study is of unquestioned value to himself? 

2. Do the majority of my pupils study because they want to, 

or because they have to? 

3. In what error may a teacher fall because of the impor- 

tance to the teacher of his specialty? 



GENERAL METHODS 95 

4. How did whippings for failure in school work make 

that work more pleasant to the pupil? 

5. How can I help my pupils to get more satisfaction (more 

pleasure) from studying my subject? 

6. How may I use my fellow teachers to help me rationalize 

my work to my pupils? 

7. What do I understand by "being a lawyer in the defense of 

my subject "? 

8. Why cannot I establish the usefulness (reasonableness) 

of my subject once for all? 

9. Compare and contrast the possibilities in teaching my pupils 

to work from a sense of duty, or of teaching them to 
work from a sense of personal gain? 

10. What are three great necessities in securing continuity of 

work between junior and senior high schools? Which is 
the most important and why? 

In the first part of this chapter, speaking of rationalizing 
the subject-matter to the pupils' minds, I have likened the 
teacher to a lawyer defending his case (the advance lesson) 
before a jury (of pupils). 

Now as this book goes to press a far better picture has 
suggested itself to me — that of a salesman trying to interest 
a prospective purchaser. 

Our junior high school teachers are, or should be, good 
salesmen "selling" their subject-lessons as one might sell bonds 
or insurance to serve as a present investment, against a not 
too distant need. 

Our pupils are prospects, who have time and study to 
invest if the advance lessons can be shown them as a sufficiently 
alluring "business proposition." 

This in a nut-shell is the essence of rationalization. 






CHAPTER VI 
ENGLISH IN THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 

In every American community where schools are main- 
tained at the expense of the taxpayer there are usually 
established certain legal minima of instruction for each 
grade. 

By such regulations a reasonable degree of uniformity 
in the work of each grade is obtained. The success or 
failure of the instructor and, what is more important, the 
success or failure of the pupils is largely if not wholly 
measured by his conformity to the conventional (legal) 
requirements. 

The aims in the school work in English wherever they 
appear in a printed outline for town, city, county, or 
state are too often written only in part for the teacher 
and pupils of the school grades concerned. Too often 
these printed guides are the work of specialists whose 
pride of authorship leads them to outline work entirely 
out of proportion to the periods allotted their subject in 
the weekly time schedule. Indeed, the author, or authors, 
of the outline often seem more anxious to make a good 
showing on paper than to furnish a working guide for 
teacher and pupils. 

In literature in each high school grade the student 
is supposed to acquire an intimate knowledege of a con- 
siderable list of standard classics and something more 
than a casual acquaintance with a much longer list of 

96 



ENGLISH IN THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 97 

books to be read and studied by the pupil alone out of 
school hours. 

In Oral English the pupil must acquire not only cor- 
rect usage in all matters of pronunciation, idiom and 
grammatical form, but be able to express himself on a 
variety of topics with accuracy and ease, at the same 
time showing an appreciation of some of the fundamentals 
of dramatic interpretation. 

In Written English all the conventions of spelling, 
punctuation and form must be memorized and unfail- 
ingly employed, while in his longer written efforts the 
pupil is expected to appreciate and to employ unity, co- 
herence and style. 

Finally, added to all that we have enumerated, a pupil 
is, in most high school communities, expected to be able 
to dissect the written thought he and others have com- 
posed and to label each component part according to a 
preconceived or borrowed terminology. In a word, while 
only a beginner in the study of language, he is expected 
to possess a rather extended knowledge of its philosophy. 

Many of us who have taught in the intermediate 
schools will feel that the entire school day with its 
supplementary hour of home study would scarcely be 
suffice to cover with something approaching thorough- 
ness the work in English laid down for any one school 
grade. 

The answer that appears to one earnestly endeavoring 
to make every minute of the time allotted to the study 
of English pay dividends in pupil improvement is to 
select at the outset certain major aims to a degree pos- 
sible of accomplishment by all in the class, and to keep 
those aims always in mind in all that we attempt to 
teach. 

For ourselves and our own work we will resolve to 



98 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

break through the water-tight compartments that have 
separated Literature, Oral and Written Composition and 
Grammar and try to make our work in English contin- 
ous and homogeneous. 

To do this will make our own work harder to plan and 
less, easy to test. Moreover, the "incidental" teaching 
of grammar in studying literature, or of spelling in teach- 
ing letter writing is so easy of omission that we may 
find essentials being overlooked entirely. Still if we 
are convinced that the continued class room separation 
of our work into its dissected parts will hamper the har- 
monious development of the pupil we may still persevere 
in following the harder course. 

Following the plan we have agreed upon, of taking 
our subject-matter in each division of our school work 
from three fields, our work in English Literature will 
come in part from what would have been taught in the 
elementary school, in part from what the senior high 
school will require and in part from what we feel it will 
be helpful to add from such new fields as may be 
helpful. 

There is no escaping ultimately the list of readings 
usually prescribed for the high schools by the colleges. 
Either through state systems of education or through 
voluntary associations of colleges a definite series of 
books is named, from which a certain number must be 
selected and read during each of the four high school 
years. If we are truly to have forward-looking schools, 
we must build our work so as to cover the college re- 
quirements in English literature even though we may not 
always believe the choice of readings the best that 
could be planned for our pupils. Therefore since we must 
do this work it is well that we plan to begin it very early 
in our junior high school course. Every few years the 



ENGLISH IN THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 99 

list of readings from which selections must be made is 
revised or modified so that it is essential in planning the 
first year of junior high school literature that this plan 
will provide for those seeking college entrance, six years 
later, when they may apply for admission to college. 

The one best list of readings for American secondary 
schools is, with hardly any doubt, the list published by 
the Bureau of Education, Department of the Interior. 
This list appears in Bulletin 1917. No. 2 (20 cents post- 
paid) and marks a distinct advance over any series of 
selections made before that time — and up to the present 
writing, since that time as well. Indeed this whole 
bulletin is so valuable in the analysis that it gives of the 
entire work in English in the seventh to twelfth school 
years that no teacher or supervisor of English can afford 
to be without it. 

Without as yet discussing the actual books that we 
may read, let us see how our peculiar junior high school 
aims will harmonize with those the senior school has 
been following as its aim in literature. Among the most 
widely accepted aims in secondary school literature may 
be: 

(a) Ability to find pleasure in reading books by the 
better authors and an increasing ability to distinguish 
what is really good from the trivial and weak. 

(b) Knowledge of a few of the greatest authors, their 
lives, their chief works, and the reasons for their im- 
portance in their own age and in ours. 

(c) Understanding of the leading features in struc- 
ture and style of the main literary types, such as novels, 
dramas, essays, lyric poems. 

(d) Skill in the following three kinds of reading and 
knowledge of when to use each: — 

(1) Cursory reading, to cover a great deal of ground, 
getting quickly at essentials. 



100 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

(2) Careful reading to master the book, with exact 
understanding of its meaning and implications. 

(3) Consultation, to trace quickly and accurately a 
particular fact by means of indexes, guides and reference 
books. 

(e) The habit of weighing, line by line, the passages 
of especial significance, while reading other parts of the 
book but once. 

(f) The power to enter imaginatively into the thought 
of an author, interpreting his meaning in the light of 
one's own experience, and to show, perhaps by selecting 
passages and reading them aloud, that the book is a 
source of intellectual enjoyment. 

In these comprehensive statements of the aims of 
teaching English Literature we have no difficulty in dis- 
covering the work of men whose one great interest in 
life is the teaching of this most valuable heritage. There 
is no question but what we would all be better human 
beings if in our own selves we could realize each of these 
aims. Primarily however, all these worthy aims, if 
realized to the fullest extent, seem to fit one for a life 
of enjoyment rather than for a life of useful creative 
efforts — save only the embryo author whose creative 
effort may be the production of still more worthy liter- 
ature. 

Without debating the extreme value of education for 
culture, for enjoyment, for rest or recreation, is it pos- 
sible to select from these aims those that will be twice or 
thrice valuable if acquired in our junior high school work? 

First of all to know the plots and the characters of 
certain books will be valuable if this knowledge secures 
the pupils' promotion to senior school and to college. 
This, however, would be equally true if, for an extreme 
example, the colleges could be imagined as requiring a 



ENGLISH IN THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 101 

knowledge of several wholly inconsequential books. It 
is not the works themselves, but the college sanction 
that gives them their value. Therefore the aim of college 
entrance, though most forceful, is at the same time least 
worthy. Yet we must set it down as one of our compel- 
ling aims. 

In the second place, most men of whatever profession, 
business or trade, if they find time for the reading of clas- 
sic literature in addition to* the current professional or 
trade literature that they must read for self-preserva- 
tion, read this classic literature for relaxation and en- 
joyment. For the larger part, however, the great Amer- 
ican public seeks its relaxation and enjoyment in reading 
current fiction whether in book or magazine form. How- 
ever vulgar or ignorant the great mass of our people 
may be considered by those who look down from the 
heights, nevertheless, if we look forward we must see that 
the chances are at least one hundred to one that our pupil 
will not often read classic literature for enjoyment 
after he leaves us. Nevertheless, something more than a 
passing knowledge of the great classics of our language 
is necessary for one who could read even current litera- 
ture with the fullest enjoyment. A true incident illus- 
trates our point. 

A young lady of refinement, the graduate of a highly 
esteemed finishing school for girls, was taken by her es- 
cort to see " Hamlet " on the stage. After the performance 
she honestly and ingenuously expressed as her greatest 
pleasure her discovery that " Hamlet " was " so full of 
quotations." This young lady from her daily and perhaps 
trashy reading had met with quotations from " Hamlet " 
without knowing their original source or setting and so 
had failed to get the fullest enjoyment from even the 
poor grade of literature she had read. 



102 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

A related experience was that of a group of seventh 
grade pupils who were asked to write down what they 
believed they had gained of permanent value from read- 
ing a series of selections from Homer's " Odyssey." Im- 
agine the teacher's surprise to find a decided majority of 
the class in full agreement that their greatest benefit came 
from the better understanding that they now had of cer- 
tain formerly puzzling allusions, scientific or trade names. 
The boys listed among other things, Ajax tires, Achilles 
tendon, Olympic games, Hercules, Titan and other spark 
plugs, Siren whistles, Vulcan springs, Vulcanite, Vulcan- 
ized rubber. 

While this may at first seem wholly ludicrous and then 
perhaps pitiable, finally we may come to see that after 
all these children may have been right in their estimate 
of what the Odyssey gave them of most value. In the 
professions, in business, or in the skilled trades, as well as 
in current literature the every-day man and woman is 
expected to know for purposes of the ordinary spoken 
and written communication of ideas, much that comes 
from the best classic literature, the works of Homer, 
Shakespeare and the Bible being perhaps the most con- 
spicuous examples. 

If we select from our required list, books that will 
give this information necessary to a better understanding 
of what others may say to us in conversation, in print 
and even on the advertising page, we have to some extent 
fitted our pupils for a happier and more useful life after 
they have left us. 

Let us then add to our first requirement (the books 
that will help our pupils to advance in the school world) 
a second requirement — books that will give our pupils 
a better understanding of what others may say or write 
to them, in public or in private. 



ENGLISH IN THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 103 

We will admit that we have failed to reach a very 
high moral plane in making our selections for junior 
high school readings in English Literature. Possibly we 
may be led to that higher plane by learning what the 
boys and girls of our junior high school years now read 
when they are left wholly to themselves without let or 
hindrance. We will agree that both our boys and girls 
read stories of youths whose wonderful adventures are 
those which they themselves imagine they would like to 
experience. The hero or heroine is such a one as our 
young reader longs to be himself, their experiences 
are the experiences our young readers would be de- 
lighted to go through in person if only assured of an 
equally happy conclusion. 

Our young reader is lifted out of himself, transfigured 
and transformed ; he is endowed with all the virtues dear 
to a boy's heart and accomplishes wonderful things for 
himself and his friends, usually against tremendous odds. 

Our opposition as anxious parents to the penny dread- 
ful which our young hopeful surreptitiously secures and 
reads is not so much to any moral turpitude of the hero 
who absorbs our son as it is to the false notion of life 
and its actual environment that this most impossible 
story may give the young reader. In so far as this ex- 
citing story takes our young reader into the realm of 
pure impossibility it acts upon him as does the drug 
upon the dope fiend whose glorified dreams unfit him for 
the realities of life and undermine his will to do decently 
the things the world requires of him. 

If in our list of required readings we are able to find 
books whose heroes picture the kind of men and women 
we wish our pupils to resemble and' which they in turn 
can be led to wish to imitate, we are on the high road to 
a useful selection that can be defended on the highest 



104 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

moral plane. Limited in age, physique, in finances and 
even in intelligence, our pupils may still be mature, 
strong, wealthy and wise if we can find the books that 
will make the fitting personal appeal. Without danger 
or suffering, they may undergo attacks and hardships 
and by living in the story they may experience vicari- 
ously countless situations that will tend to make them 
wiser and nobler men and women if only our selection of 
a book is well made and our method of teaching it is 
wisely ordered. 

Our third aim — which now becomes our first one in 
the class room — is to give our pupils in their reading 
with us such vicarious experience as will tend to make 
them more useful, more reliable, more ambitious, more 
sane, more happy young men and women. 

We can scarcely attempt to discuss here the method of 
teaching English Literature. So much has been written 
from the standpoint of the student of literature that any 
repetition of it here would be merely a re-statement of 
what is already known. From the peculiar standpoint 
of the junior high school teacher it is, however, worth 
our while to recognize the extreme necessity of securing 
the unanimous and sincere agreement of each pupil in 
our class upon the* value and the desirability of the aims 
we jointly pursue with them. 

As we have agreed before and may many times re- 
count, each book that we propose to read comes up for 
trial in the mind of each young and ignorant pupil as 
charged with being a largely, if not wholly, useless and 
unprofitable proposition. The time we spend in 
having our selection vindicated as "not guilty," on this 
charge, will be time well spent no matter how much time 
and effort that may require. We are working together 
in the junior high school, not only on things we teachers 



ENGLISH IN THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 105 

believe to be worth while both now and later on, but 
equally upon the things which our pupils beside us believe 
essential to their own present success in school and still 
more their ultimate success when school is long gone by. 

Written English 

Critics of the schools have been quick to pick out for 
condemnation sample letters of school children that con- 
tain misspelled words and faulty grammar. Schools and 
schools systems have often been held up to scorn for 
failure to satisfactorily drill their pupils upon these so 
called fundamentals in letter writing. 

Yet in real life when we get a letter, or when we send 
one, it is the message of the letter and not its form that 
determines such a letter's genuine value to us as individ- 
uals. Even though we may wince at misspelled words 
we can think of no really serious and valuable human 
document that would have its intrinsic worth destroyed 
by faulty spelling. We might paraphrase the line from 
Burns in perfect agreement — "The form is but the 
guinea stamp, the thought's the gold for a' that." Yet in 
the school world the stamp of perfect form even on a 
"spit ball" is often revered above the rough and ill-shaped 
nugget of virgin gold. 

Not that we would wish to appear as champions of 
the letter that murders the King's English and carries 
a phonetic spelling system of its own, but that we wish 
to let no examination of the superficial faults of form, 
blind us to the fundamental merits of the letter as evi- 
dence of human understanding. The recognized errors 
of our earlier writers of what is now classic English 
whether in spelling or in punctuation have not appeared 
to keep those contributions to literature from enduring 



106 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

even to this day. The proofreader and the publisher, 
even now, keep no few errors of the approved authors of 
today from the pages of our more treasured books. 

In the history of any written language we find in its 
infancy only that degree of accuracy in form necessary 
to carry the thought, no matter with what phonetic 
freedom the words are spelled; indeed at first we know 
there was no spelling and even much later there was no 
punctuation. Because at the end of centuries we have 
worked out a fairly fixed set of rules for the form of 
English writing, this is no reason why in our school work 
we should begin our work with children where the sages 
finally stopped. 

Even risking the displeasure of the formalist who may 
be high in power, we must try to teach our children to 
write something worthy of correct form, before we lay 
too great stress on the form itself. Even at the risk 
of being labelled heretics in school work, we must put 
content above form in written English. We must keep 
our perspective and not overlook the forest through our 
examination of some faulty trees. We must remember 
that in the world outside the school a colorless, insipid, 
valueless letter will instantly find the trash basket, 
though this letter be correct to every last detail of 
spelling, punctuation and grammar. Outside of the class 
room there will be no kind pedagogue to mark a letter 
"Spelling 100%, Punctuation 100%, Grammar 100%," 
etc., etc. The reader alone will rate this letter as a letter 
— and that is the one mark that counts. 

Really, the children, who do not seem to understand 
our alarm and consternation over their errors in form, 
may have some intellectual advantages over us, their 
teachers. Children become vitally interested in correct 
form only when they feel they are able to compose some- 



ENGLISH IN THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 107 

thing that others besides themselves and their teachers 
will really care to read. Just as few normal children are 
greatly concerned over their personal appearance when 
they go where no one is to see them, so they are usually 
not concerned over any letter whose ultimate resting 
place is the school waste paper pile. 

Indeed if we think of the content of any letter as a 
living boy or girl and the formal elements as that child's 
clothing, we can more clearly appreciate our pupils' 
natural point of view. Of course, that point of view may 
be changed, too often is changed, by years of teacher- 
nagging until the youngster's mind is perverted to the 
idea that the clothes, the form, are the only things worth 
while. These perverted minds may be, after all, our big- 
gest problem in teaching our children how to write. Too 
often we find our intermediate pupils perfectly self sat- 
isfied if they laboriously construct a formally correct 
shell which clothes no thought. In this formal writing, 
however, even the perverted take no pleasure. They 
write, when compelled to write, by the teacher's order and 
sigh with relief when their task is done. 

On the other hand, it is not only possible, but usual, 
for children to really love to write if they are encour- 
aged to try to put down something that can be shown 
will really be of interest, of honest interest, to some 
reader, beside the teacher. It may be difficult to secure 
any degree of enthusiasm over making correct clothes 
to garb emptiness, or at best a scarecrow, but if the 
youngster knows that his effort is going out to be 
seen of men. the question of proper clothing becomes at 
last of real importance. Only in proportion as there 
is something worth clothing, do the fit and style of the 
clothes themselves become to the pupil worthy of 
thoughtful attention. 



108 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

In the earlier years of the junior high school our aim 
in Written English is to help the children to write some- 
thing they believe worth clothing in correct form. 
If in the body of their letter they find a living being that 
really has an appeal to some one (that is not paid to read 
it) , something that some other person would really like to 
read, then they at once become concerned with clothing 
that thought in its proper form. Here comes our first 
honest opportunity as teachers to drill upon those forma] 
things that in many schools more often stifle thought 
than help to express it. 

Because it is easier to find subjects for compositions 
written on general topics and to a general undefined 
public (or to find topics interesting to the teacher alone) 
our ordinary choice of topics for Written English pos- 
sesses little vital interest to the pupil who does the writ- 
ing. The pupil knows only too well that the general 
public will never see his written effort — while aside 
from the stimulus of "marks" there is little enthusiasm 
over writing "to please the teacher." 

It becomes necessary then for us to find each time for 
each pupil an audience that will in reality and in truth 
get some genuine enjoyment out of reading the pupil's 
composition. 

Outside of school, in the real world of men and people, 
not far from ninety-nine per cent of us never actually 
take up pen and ink except to write a letter to a friend 
There are, to be sure, the occasional business letters, but 
as a rule the telephone, a personal visit, or a dictated let- 
ter keep us from pen and ink. We may be reasonably 
sure that out of a thousand of our junior high school 
pupils so few will ultimately be called upon (for several 
years at least) to write other than friendly letters, that 
we may neglect the insignificant minority. On the other 



ENGLISH IN THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 109 

hand, ouf puiplg/if they write from any self -originated 
motive, wmwrite to a friend — usually a friend of their 
own age — and a friend who is too far away to make 
it possible to substitute a call for the letter in question. 

The first thing then in our written work is to find 
for each pupil a friend of the pupil's own age who may 
reasonably be expected to be delighted at receiving a let- 
ter from our pupil. However, our choice of an audience 
of one is not quite as easy as it appears if we complicate 
this choice by introducing the question of a somewhat 
limited source of topics. At least one in four of our 
pupils' letters might well be purely personal, even pri- 
vate letters — which the teacher alone would read (in 
confidence) before mailing to the distant friend. The 
content of such a personal and private letter must 
be largely a matter of the pupils' personal and in- 
dividual choice. However, for the other three letters we 
should strive to make it possible to select the subject of 
the letter from the school work, in English, but if not 
from that, then from the work in other subjects. 

Let us suggest a topic that will make the pupil's effort 
twice valuable ■ — first as an endeavor to write something 
worth reading and second as a review of some knowledge 
recently acquired in school. Now our choice of this audi- 
ence of one becomes more difficult, because if we are to 
make our first requirement in letter writing a genuine in- 
terest on the part of the recipient of the letter and then 
we are to make a topic chosen from the school work our 
second requirement, we must needs give some little 
thought to fitting together a suitable audience and a suit- 
able topic. 

It may be necessary for the pupil to make first a list 
of friends to whom he truly would like to write and 
after that a much larger list of subjects which may be 



HO THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

approved as ideas to be developed in his letters. The 
fitting of the proper person and the proper subject be- 
comes itself scarcely less valuable educationally than 
the actual writing of the letter itself. 

So far our emphasis has been laid upon making 
our pupils' written work do what similar written work 
does outside the school, this is, carry a real message to 
a real person. We would have practically every letter 
serve a real purpose beyond that of the treadmill of 
school work. We would have every letter sent, usually 
through the mails, to some one who will honestly be glad 
to receive it and who may in some cases be expected to 
reply. 

Subjects for our pupils' letters as previously suggested 
should come from the school work they are following. It 
has been said that no one really understands a subject un- 
til he tries to teach it. To a certain extent then we wish 
to make our pupils teachers of their various subjects 
through their written work. May we consider certain 
groups of subjects that may be letter topics suitable for 
our work. 

If our pupil's correspondent is a boy or a girl in gram- 
mar school we have one point of attack; if in high- 
school another; if at work still another. Taking our 
topics from English first — we may have for each cor- 
respondent an opening letter on the subject "Why we 

write letters instead of compositions in School." 

Then we may have a series based on the work in litera- 
ture in which the pupil briefly tells the kind of a story he 
is studying and then selects one incident for more de- 
tailed description having as a motive holding the inter- 
est of his reader-friend until the end. 

Such a letter might well be more or less along the 
following lines: — 



ENGLISH IN THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL HI 



Introduction 



Body 



Or 



Closing 



Dear 

Have you ever read the story of 

by ? It is the story of 

in the time of The hero is 

and the heroine 

The most interesting character to me is 

I like him (her) because 

To me the most interesting (most exciting, 
most typical, saddest, most thrilling, most 
uncertain, most joyful) incident is where 
(now the body of the letter) . 

If you have not read this book you will en- 
joy doing so, not only for the story itself, but 
for the knowledge it will give you of 

I hope my account of has inter- 
ested you. Can't you find time to write me 
and tell me what you think of it? 

Yesterday I saw who asked for 

you. I hope you are succeeding in 

Give my best regards to X, Y, 

and Z send you their best wishes, 
Sincerely, 



According to the occupation of the recipient of the let- 
ter, the beginning may be varied, "Have you read ?" 

"Before long you will read " "Do you remem- 
ber reading ?" 

A second and more difficult series is that of some per- 
sonal experience compared with some incident in a book 
that is being read. The series might begin: — 

introduction When I was reading recently . I 

was reminded of an experience of mine in 



Body 
Closing 



In the book the hero and that is 

how I felt when 

Have you ever had such an experience? 
Do you think you would have done the same 
as when 



112 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

A third series may begin, " Would you like to become 

such a character as in the story of . ... by 

which I have just read? 

A fourth and more intimate letter — one which may 
have real ethical value and which would be directed 
only to some loving and sympathetic friend, possibly 
a mother or a father — might begin: — 

Dear Mother: — 

Introduction - Do you know that I think I resemble tne 

character of in the book called 

which I am reading at school. 

If I do not resemble closely, at 

least I would like to do so. 

Body Although I am only a schoolboy (girl) I 
am like in many ways, particu- 
larly in 

X acted just as I would have 

done in his place, when in the story he 



Closing When I grow up would you like to have me 

resemble X in ? I 

hope you would. 

Sincerely, 

A series based on spelling could begin: — 
My dear Henry, 

Do you have any difficulty with spelling? I do and I 
am trying to overcome that difficulty by constant practice. 

The words that trouble me most are words like 

The way I am learning to spell them correctly is 

I wonder if there are any misspelled words in this letter. 
I hope not. When you write tell me what words bother 
you most and I won't care if you don't get them all right 
so long as I hear from you, 

Sincerely, 



ENGLISH IN THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 113 

A series based on grammar is somewhat far fetched 
as a subject for a series of friendly letters. It may be 
difficult for us to imagine any topics from grammar 
that would be of real interest unless the writer were to 
diagram some sentences and send them as a puzzle 
to his* friend — the diagramed sentences being a real 
part of the letter and carrying a real message. (We are 
told in most modern outlines to minimize diagraming 
yet so long as we study formal grammar the diagram 
will survive as an aid to teaching that quite too mature 
subject.) 

In other subjects the teachers of those subjects may be 
called upon to furnish letter topics such as the follow- 
ing:— 

Science 

Story of an excursion. 

Description of some animal, plant, or machine. 
Explanation (semi-scientific) of some common phenom- 
enon not usually understood. 

Civics 

A letter of congratulation to some hero of the police 
or fire department (from the daily paper). 

A letter of appreciation to the local street cleaning 
foreman or to some park attendant. 

A letter to a friend telling of the good work of some 
local • town or city employee. 

A story of some recent, or approaching, election and 
the writer's choice of candidates with the reasons for that 
choice. 

Mathematics 

A letter to a friend — explaining some short cut in 
Arithmetic. 

Giving a puzzle problem and its solution ("How old 
is Ann?")- 

Outlining the high school course in mathematics that 
the writer expects to follow. 



114 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

Telling what part of Arithmetic, Geometry, Algebra, 
the writer finds most interesting, most difficult, most 
useful. 

History 

The celebration of some legal holiday. 

Why we honor the memory of 

The story of some local landmark. 
My favorite American hero. 

Music 

The story of my favorite song. 

What instrument I am learning to play and how I am 
doing it. 

Art 

The picture I like best. 
The prettiest design I ever saw. 
When people wrote by pictures. 

A description of our dining room, parlor, kitchen at 
home (illustrated by sketches). 

And so the series may be extended. As teachers we 
must' find something that the pupil really wants to write 
about, something that the reader will really follow 
through with interest and something that will so far as 
possible serve double duty reviewing school work while 
still serving as the topic for a genuine, and not stilted, 
letter. 

Outside of school topics a series of letters written to 
the pupils' parents upon his choice of occupation will 
well serve the double purpose we have constantly in 
view . The pupil's training in correct expression is 
paralleled by information that will be of real value to 
him in selecting his life work. 

The teacher of English here again becomes some- 
thing more than a critic of form, because the content 
itself is of such vital importance to the young writer. 

Such a series may begin: — 



ENGLISH IN THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 115 

Dear Father: — 

I am thinking seriously of learning to be a 

This occupation appeals to me for several reasons — 

first second third etc., 

etc. 

If one wishes to become successful he must 

be naturally I am especially successful in 

school in (parts of subjects) and I enjoy 

studying about 

To become well trained as a the following 

education will be necessary for me after I leave this school. 
(Pupil outlines in considerable detail the educational re- 
quirements.) • 

Even after all this is done I will need help in securing the 
right kind of a position to begin work and I think that 
will help me to get such a position because 



Do you think that the occupation of a 

would be a good one for me? Please tell me your reasons 
for your answer. 

Your loving son, 

Each pupil may well select several occupations as the 
basis of a series of letters. The letters thus composed 
will interest the pupils' parents and equally the writer's 
fellow pupils if he is willing to release them for a class 
reading. No one will dispute the fact that these letters, 
if carefully worked out, may be of genuine help to the 
pupil in selecting his life work. 

The criticism may be justly raised here that while 
some personal friend may serve as an audience for 
nearly all letters that are written in the general or aca- 
demic high school course such an audience will not suf- 
fice for commercial training in so called "Business 
English," which involves the understanding and use of 
certain idioms or conventions assumed to be more or less 
characteristic of business correspondence. 



116 . THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

Aside from the occasional ordering of a real article 
with real money enclosed — the real business letter is 
largely an impossibility for the average pupil — and this 
brings us to another side of our Written English problem. 

In all our effort to make our letters real letters that are 
really sent to real friends we should not entirely lose 
sight of the value of "make believe" in some of our 
written work. Our emphasis upon genuineness has been 
necessary to counteract the all too prevalent tendency 
to make all our school writing artificial to a deadening 
degree, m 

As an occasional change from our letters that are 
actually stamped and mailed the letter in which the 
writer himself is both author and recipient is a welcome 
diversion. As an example of this make-believe series 
a thoughtful teacher of Commercial English worked out 
a plan that meets almost every requirement. 

The pupils of this class were first invited to go into 
business for themselves in some town or city outside of 
New York. The choice of the business itself was edu- 
cational and involved considerable class discussion (oral 
composition) as to feasible and profitable undertakings. 

Next came a study of trade routes, rail and water 
communication and the character of the population to 
be served — all superficial, possibly — but correlating 
with, and giving a motive for commercial geography. 

Having selected his business, his town, his site for 
store or factory, the pupil from this new location writes 
to one or more business firms in New York to secure 
prices on certain merchandise needed for the undertak- 
ing. 

This serves as the beginning of an interchange of 
letters that keeps the pupils' interest throughout a school 
year. The pupil first writes under his own name asking 



ENGLISH IN THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 117 

for merchandise or credit and then replies to these 
letters under the names of the firms to which he had 
written for information. Writing again under his own 
name he orders merchandise, or perhaps writes again 
asking for more favorable terms. After the merchan- 
dise has been finally ordered and shipped some is found 
to have been damaged in transit and some appears to 
be below the specifications. This again involves an ex- 
change of letters in which the pupil continues in his dual 
capacity. New orders for stock and new difficulties in 
shipment or in payment seem to present in succession 
a series of motives for letter writing that never fail, but 
seem rather to increase in interest as the school year 
goes by. 

For certain work then, where the age or position of the 
pupil makes the real letter that is actually mailed an 
impossibility, the "make believe" series in which the 
pupil is both author and audience has its real place. 
Even in letters of this latter type the imitation of 
reality must be employed seriously and consistently 
or the whole series falls flat. 

Corrections 

The one part of the old style school composition most 
hated by both teacher and pupil was the inevitable red- 
pencilling of the finished copy. The conscientious 
teacher usually felt that he had to wade through, often, 
hundreds of his pupils' collected compositions each week. 
This is indeed a hard and, usually, a thankless task. 
The pupil when he secured once more his now defaced, 
though once (to him) attractive written effort, usually 
experienced to a degree the feelings one might have in 
accepting the body of a relative after an autopsy. To 



118 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

reconstruct that mangled thing partook of all the joy 
of a post-mortem operation. There is a time, however, 
in the growth of a letter when any normal pupil will wel- 
come suggestions — that time is when the letter is grow- 
ing, when the ideas are only half formed, when the clay 
is still plastic. The pupil wants to write an interesting 
and a decently appearing letter and will welcome, even 
seek, the teacher's criticisms at this time if they are 
offered in no fault-finding spirit. 

Therefore the letters should always (and usually only) 
be written in the class room when the teacher is free to 
help. A few blackboard suggestions — "Remember your 
margins," "Consult the dictionary if uncertain," "Make 
your sentences short and crisp," "When in doubt use an- 
other expression," will do more real good than all the red 
marks the teacher can crowd on the paper when the pu- 
pil has finished. 

The pupil, in the meanwhile, writes what he knows is 
only his first rough draft and to emphasize its temporary 
character he writes in pencil usually and on rough, cheap 
paper with little or no care as to appearances, seeking 
only to put down some interesting truths in an appealing 
way, as any adult might sketch a letter later to be trans- 
cribed. 

So this first draft will develop. Erasures or crossing- 
out will be the rule, until finally something decipherable 
is left ready to be dressed up in its more pleasing 
clothes. Such changes and corrections as the teacher 
is able to make on the spot and on the rough draft as it 
develops are the only ones to be considered. The final 
form of the letter is written on the school's best paper in 
ink with every possible care as to appearance as well as to 
correctness in detail. No corrections by the teacher ap- 
pear on the final copy, though letters if copied in a slov- 



ENGLISH IN THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 119 

enly manner may be confiscated as too poor to send. 
To be sure if the writer has made slight errors that may 
be corrected by unnoticeable changes, the pupil may be 
urged to make these himself, but in general the teacher 
merely acts as "military censor" for this copy, to see 
that it is fit in appearance to be mailed. 

The ratings which the teacher keeps to record the 
progress of the pupil are separate for content and form. 
The emphasis at first is almost wholly on the expression, 
interest and truthfulness of the letter. Only when this 
part of the letter reaches a commendatory rank does the 
emphasis turn to matters of form. Following an earlier 
simile, it is time enough to think of clothes when one 
has something worth clothing. 

Oral English in the Junior High School 

In our Oral English we are supposed by the layman 
to train our pupils first negatively, then positively. We 
are supposed to banish forever from the pupil's vocab- 
ulary the ungrammatical and illiterate expressions they 
have been using for the larger fraction of their lifetime. 
Then we are supposed to supply the pupils with a polite 
and easy delivery of unquestionable English. As 
teachers we would be unwilling to go on record as saying 
that this is never done, but we would still be willing to 
put in writing our conviction that such a change is well 
nigh impossible. What we may do is to make a pupil 
hesitate before he murders the King's English too freely 
in our presence, but "with the fellows" our potential 
purist will still say, "I ain't got no," or become a social 
outcast. 

It is for us to devise some plan by which our pupils 
may become interested in speaking to each other in 




120 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

correct form. For this no better exercise has yet been 
found than "the class meeting" which is a regularly 
scheduled event of each week's program. While cor- 
rect Oral English must be the rule for such a period 
the content of the discussions comes from questions that 
appear more or less vital to the life of the class in school. 
The first steps in the class meeting period begin with the 
election of class officers which must be carried out with 
the utmost formality under the teacher's guidance. This 
makes it necessary for the teacher to be, as each pupil will 
later become, an expert parliamentarian. There is no 
question here as to the "doing better" value of this 
work. Wherever men and women meet to conduct busi- 
ness as a group, there must be compliance with some 
established rules of order. 

When the class officers are elected there may then be 
introduced any resolutions or motions on matters of 
genuine class interest. Some matters for early discus- 
sion may be the formation of class athletic teams, the 
arranging of a class excursion, or the discussion of some 
question interesting the school as a whole. It is not 
necessary or advisable to draw up a class constitution 
until such time as the need for one is felt. All that is 
necessary is to pass a rule that the meetings of this class 
shall be conducted according to Cushing's Manual, Rob- 
erts' Rules of Order, or some more modern and not too 
technical book of parliamentary practice. 

The pupils learn that before there can be any discus- 
sion of any project there must be a "question before the 
house." They learn to speak to the question, or be ruled 
out of order and they learn that correct and simple 
English must be used in making motions and in debating 
them. The teacher as advising parliamentarian may sit 
beside the president and advise him at the start. Later 



ENGLISH IN THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 121 

the teacher becomes merely an honorary member of the 
class ready to raise a point of order when that seems 
necessary, but with no vote, though a voice in all dis- 
cussions. The old difficulty in getting the pupils to talk 
in the Oral English period becomes one now of keeping 
the pupils from talking too much. The teacher's one 
chief concern is to assist the class in selecting sensible 
and really worth-while topics for discussion and in see- 
ing that the motions that are finally passed get some re- 
sults in actual accomplishment. This is far different 
from a debating society where the questions are wholly 
academic. What we vote in our class meetings should be, 
wherever possible, productive of genuine, pertinent 
results. 

It soon becomes necessary for the class to enact cer- 
tain by-laws to make the discussions general and to de- 
bar some of the more loquacious, or less sagacious, from 
taking all the time of the meeting. Such by-laws may 
limit the time any one speaker may take to two or three 
minutes and may empower the president to call upon any 
member for an expression of his opinion upon the ques- 
tion before the house with his reasons, briefly stated, 
for holding that opinion. 

Pupils quickly learn that the only way to be sure 
of saying what they mean is to speak correctly. The 
double negative, the unfinished sentence, mistakes with 
relative pronouns, etc., etc., disappear as the pupil is 
shown by his classmates that he is, through his errors, 
often really arguing against his own position. 

In order that all our discussions be not impromptu, 
it is wise toward the close of each meeting to decide 
upon the main question to be discussed at the meeting 
following. This gives the chance for those most inter- 
ested to prepare their arguments in advance and if we 



122 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

have the rule enabling the president to call at will upon 
any member, it makes each pupil give some thought 
to putting his sentiments in correct oral form. It may 
be necessary for the teacher of a sluggish class at times 
to follow the precedent of the political convention and 
"plant" the maker and the seconder of the question he 
thinks it would be well to discuss. The teacher may even 
"plant" an argument here and there for or against the 
question, but he must do this most tactfully to avoid 
any semblance to trying to run the meeting. To make 
these meetings, a success the most essential things are, 
first, to make the pupils realize that in honor and truth 
these meetings are the pupils' very own and, second, that 
whatever the class resolves after due deliberation and- 
discussion, something will be done about it. 

As in our discussion elsewhere of Written English, 
emphasis is laid first and foremost on having something 
worth while to say and second, in saying it in correct 
English. The emphasis upon the form, however, comes 
earlier and is more vital than in the pupil's written let- 
ters. 

Under the heading of Civics we shall further discuss the 
possibilities of the class meeting for civic and ethical 
training. It is enough to call attention to that possibil- 
ity here. The good teacher of English as the good teacher 
of any subject in the junior high school will always be 
alert to make his class work do double duty by teaching 
two subjects at one and the same time. In Oral English 
the teacher concerned at heart with correct English ex- 
pression secures that expression in part through class 
meetings in which subjects valuable for other reasons 
to his fellow teachers and his school are being discussed. 

In our class meetings then we have found an oppor- 
tunity for the pupils to practice good English in speak- 



ENGLISH IN THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 123 

ing to each other. Something more than an opportu- 
nity, however, has been found. We have found a plan 
by which pupils will be not merely given the opportu- 
nity, but impelled by a strong desire to speak to each 
other and to speak correctly. 

Practice in correct English, though at this point in 
our study of the junior high school of major importance, 
is by no means the only valuable result. Indeed of 
all the results gained from the class meeting — more 
careful grammar, a knowledge of the rules of order, 
the freedom from embarrassment when on the floor of 
a meeting, speaking briefly and to the point, keeping on 
the question, training in convincing others and cooper- 
ation with one's fellows for worthy ends, — the greatest 
values are not formal but spiritual. The pupil learns 
politeness, consideration and team work as a means 
of securing greater happiness for himself and for his 
group. As he learns to discriminate between the rights 
and wrongs of questions affecting his class, as he learns 
to appreciate moral and ethical values that to him as 
an individual were never prominent, our pupil is not 
merely preparing for good citizenship — he is living it. 



QUESTIONS 

English Literature 

1. What aims are usually given for the teaching of high school 

English? 

2. How would I arrange these aims in order of importance: 

(a) to myself as a teacher of English? 

(b) to my pupils as students of English? 

3. What reasons can I give for making vicarious experience 

the chief aim for junior high school English Literature? 

4. What is the greatest danger to a pupil from reading over- 

imaginative stories? 



124 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

5. How may I combat the tendency of my pupil to drug 

himself with fiction? 

6. How may a pupil be led toward mental maturity of judg- 

ment through a wise use of required readings in English 
Literature ? 

Written English 

1. What is one great reason why children find it so diffi- 

cult to accept the teacher's emphasis upon form? 

2. How may I make the work in Written English an eagerly 

desired exercise? 

3. How would I lead a pupil to see that the selection of his 

audience is the most important primary step in writing? 

4. Who (or what) constitutes a genuine audience for a junior 

high school pupil? 

5. How can I find such an audience for each of my pupils? 
6. How can I use my pupil's ineterest in his written message 

to awaken his sincere interest in its form? 

7. Outline a plan for making Written English do double duty 

by using subjects from each of his four other major lines 
of study. 

Oral English 

1. How may I plan to make pupils desire to talk to each other 

in correct English? 

2. What technical knowledge outside of a knowledge of correct 

English must I possess to accomplish this? 

3. What may I select for the subjects of discussion in class 

meetings ? 

4. Why is it so essential that some positive action results 

from class discussion? 

5. What gains aside from gains in spoken English surely ac- 

company the class meeting? 



CHAPTER VII 
GENERAL INTRODUCTORY MATHEMATICS 

Our junior high schools, we have agreed, should be 
par excellence the schools for sorting and classifying 
pupils according to their promise of future success. 

Instead of carrying all our pupils along an identical 
and unvarying road to the end of the eighth school year 
and then saying — " Choose now, between these three or 
four types of high school work, or leave them all and seek 
employment at once" — we should introduce our pupils 
gradually to the varying types of work which they may 
later follow in school or employment, so that each pupil 
may be led through his own actual experience to select 
as wisely as his own tastes, his teachers' advice and his 
parents' wishes make possible — unquestionably a far 
superior selection than possible under the "eight and 
four" plan of former years. On this basis, we can see 
quite clearly what an introductory course in mathema- 
tics must be and, equally too, what it must not be. 

Making our first forward step by exclusion we see that 
our course in mathematics must not be one designed 
chiefly for a single type of pupil — commercial, techni- 
cal, or academic. Our course must not prescribe this 
much old style arithmetic to be followed by that much 
old style algebra in the high school sequence, but rather 
our course must be composed of the elements, the very 
simplest elements at first, of commercial arithmetic, in- 
dustrial arithmetic, algebra, geometry and the beginning 

125 



126 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

of trigonometry, all pursued in general upon a special 
plan. 

The question now arises — 7s this possible in practice, 
no matter how desirable it may be in theory? 

Approaching the course of study in mathematics from 
this standpoint we must search for a course which plans 
to open the eyes of all its students to the general field 
of mathematics that lies just ahead. 

We wish to lead our pupils to a wise choice in their 
next step. To be sure, other things outside the work in 
Mathematics may really determine the pupils' later 
choice, yet that is no reason for closing the pupils' work 
in Mathematics with no glimpse of the fields ahead of 
the Elementary Arithmetic text. 

Should the pupils continue their education beyond the 
eighth school year what subjects will they study next? 
The next in prospect are Accounting, Algebra, Geometry, 
Trigonometry. Is it right for us to make the pupil 
choose whether or not he will enter these advanced sub- 
jects, while we forbid absolutely any comprehension of 
what these courses stand for in school work? 

If we decide that it would be highly desirable for a 
pupil sometime during his seventh, eighth, or ninth, year 
to have at least an introduction to these higher subjects, 
is it feasible for us to introduce any of these subjects 
below the age where tradition has decided the choice in 
most cases should be made? 

In the ninth year, Accounting, Algebra and in some 
eases Geometry are now taught in our high schools, but 
that year is too late for a preliminary introduction be- 
cause the pupil must settle down to his definite choice in 
order to gain his high school credits toward graduation. 

If, then, we are to give our pupils any introductory 
experience in the advanced fields, that experience may 



GENERAL INTRODUCTORY MATHEMATICS 127 

well begin before the close of his seventh school year. 

Again the question arises, is it possible, or practicable 
to simplify the introductory work in these higher sub- 
jects to that degree necessary for their earlier introduc- 
tion and still leave work enough to be seriously con- 
sidered introductory Accounting, Algebra and Geometry? 
Let us consider these topics separately. 

Accounting. Accounting, including Bookkeeping, 
which we understand to be the mathematics of business 
transactions, has for some time been really a large, pos- 
sibly too large a part of our former seventh and eighth 
year work. No one will seriously dispute the possibility 
of finding much "Business Arithmetic" that is simpler 
than a great deal of the Arithmetic usually taught in 
the seventh year in the elementary school. This topic 
need therefore give us no concern from the standpoint 
of difficulty. Household accounts present Bookkeeping 
in its simplest forms and may be used to lead up to 
more advanced work with Day Book, Cash Book and 
Ledger. The problems of the store, discounts, bills, re- 
ceipts and invoices are now being taught to the seventh 
and eighth year pupils in the elementary school. Ru- 
dimentary banking, interest simple and compound, de- 
posits, checks and notes are also taught. Commercial 
high school mathematics as taught in the ninth year 
present few difficulties that would forbid the introduction 
of such few desirable topics as may be now omitted 
from the seventh and eighth year school work provided 
only that the numbers used, or steps involved, are not 
made unnecessarily confusing. 

Algebra. A great advance in the treatment of Al- 
gebra and Geometry has been secured in the syllabi pub- 
lished by the Regents of the State of New York in 1918 
over the course some of us pursued in our various schools 



128 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

twenty or more years earlier, but the progress as we see 
it has been only half far enough. 

For the purpose of making our points more emphatic 
may we refer with some frequence to the mathematics 
of our own school years. 

Algebra seems to present more difficulties than Ac- 
counting. Our own memories of our early struggle may 
yet be far from faint, but if we will take the time to 
open our old texts it will not take us long to find out 
why Algebra was a bar to the progress of so many in 
our old school days and still may be a destroyer of school 
ambitions for so many today. As we study the situation 
in review there seems to be little, if any, justification 
in modern educational theory for the style of treatment 
accorded Algebra in most of the texts we teachers studied 
as children. 

The four processes (addition, subtraction, multipli- 
cation and division) were treated in sequence separately 
and almost exhaustively. One might not learn to subtract 
the simplest possible statements until he had learned to 
add almost any complicated series or symbols the fancy 
could devise. 

Let us take from an old text-book still used in many 
high schools a problem in addition that precedes any 
work in subtraction — 

m 5 -f- 3ra 4 n — 6m 3 n -\- m 3 n 2 -f- m2 ^ 2 — 5ra 4 n 
7m 3 n 2 -j- 4m 2 n 2 — Smn 4 

— 2m 2 n 3 — Smn 4 -\- 4n 5 
2mn* + 2n 5 + 3m 5 

— n 5 -\- 2ra 5 + 7m 4 n 

Does it not seem ridiculous that we should have been 
obliged to meet such an obstacle in the first two weeks of 
our introduction to algebra? What would we think of 



GENERAL INTRODUCTORY MATHEMATICS 129 

a course in arithmetic that forbade our youngsters to sub- 
tract one from two until they had learned to add 

536,115 

7,430 

234 

300,022 

270,001 



Yet this problem in arithmetical addition is almost an 
exact parallel of the one in algebraic addition we just 
considered which precedes any work in subtraction. 
Straight through our old texts and, indeed, through many 
texts still used in the opening year of high schools runs 
this same absurd treatment. We could duplicate this 
situation at the end of each fundamental process. 

In factoring, why in the simplest examples in multi- 
plication may not a boy reverse the process of multi- 
plication and learn the first steps of factoring when the 
process may be more easily introduced? Instead, we 
find, before the pupil is allowed to attempt even the fac- 
toring of x 2 -j- xy, that most text-books of high school 
algebra require the solution of examples in multiplica- 
tion and in division, each one of which could scarcely 
be worked out in half an hour. 

So we could go from one chapter to the next of most 
Algebras finding that the author seemed to attempt 
almost to exhaust the possibilities of one topic before 
considering the first steps of the next. Enough has been 
given to emphasize our contention that it is fully as 
much (if not indeed far more) the treatment which has 
been followed rather than it is the difficulty of the sub- 
ject of algebra that keeps many people from believing 
that any algebra can be taught below the years of high 
school grade. 



130 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

Geometry. Taking geometry, next, we find a condi- 
tion in many ways similar to that in algebra, yet not 
on the whole as complex. There does not seem to be a 
desire on the part of every author to tell quite the last 
word about the triangles, for example, before mentioning 
a quadrilateral, yet this is perhaps because we need to 
use quadrilaterals to understand more about triangles. 

We find, however, that how "to erect a perpendicu- 
lar at a given point in a straight line" was not planned 
to be taught until (in one text) the pupil had completed 
sixty-seven earlier propositions and had covered one 
hundred and five pages of the text including such diffi- 
cult demonstrative theorems as: — " An angle formed 
by two secants, two tangents, or a tangent and a secant 
intersecting without the circumference, is measured by 
one half the aifference of the intercepted arc." 

Yet in the inventional geometry taught for several 
years in the eighth grade of many elementary schools, 
our boys and girls have found no difficulty at all in 
learning to " construct perpendiculars." This construc- 
tion problem our pupils have been in the habit of master- 
ing about two years before they began geometry as a 
separate study and before they have learned, as many are 
expected to do in the first week of high school geom- 
etry: — "If two adjacent angles are supplements to each 
other, their exterior sides lie in the same straight line." 

In high school geometry the difficulty of the work 
for the pupil appears to have been occasionally con- 
sidered, just barely considered, but the logic of the 
arrangement is never lost sight of no matter into what 
educational absurdities it leads us. Much that may be 
easily comprehended by any normal pupil in his seventh 
year is hidden behind theorems so difficult as to stagger 
many boys in the second year of high school, boys three 
years more advanced. 



1>~ 



GENERAL INTRODUCTORY MATHEMATICS 131 

Trigonometry. Trigonometry may seem to present 
insuperable difficulties and we need not take this topic 
farther than to agree that it is possible to give any 
eighth year boy an introductory idea of what trigonome- 
try does, or what trigonometry is used for, without leading 
him beyond his mental depth. It is wholly a matter 
here of the introduction. 

May we briefly summarize the situation thus far 
disclosed: 

I. Our elementary school pupils' capabilities from the 
viewpoint of mathematics have been, on the whole, un- 
tried in other than one line — arithmetic of the conven- 
tional type. We know or may learn, that these pupils are 
now unable to make a reliable choice. We know further 
that these pupils will diverge later into three or four main 
groups — Academic, Scientific, Commercial, Industrial 
— that they will of necessity be called upon either to 
leave school or to select subjects of study in mathematics 
while knowing scarcely anything more than the name of 
these subjects and we have agreed that this situation 
is not a satisfactory one. 

II. We have seen that the subjects of next mathemati- 
cal concern have not been treated in most texts in a man- 
ner tending to make their introduction either simple, 
attractive, or even to the brightest pupils, rational. We 
may have been led to see that the first steps in account- 
ing, algebra, geometry, are not so inherently difficult 
of and in themselves, but rather that it has been the 
total disregard of the principle "from the simple to the 
complex" as a beginner would understand it, that has 
made these subjects difficult. 

For over six years at the Speyer School, we have been 
testing our theories in the class room. In each sub-di- 
vision of general mathematics we have followed at Speyer 



132 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

a modified spiral treatment with very marked success. 
Our unit is called Junior High School Mathematics. It 
covers most of the usual elementary school arithmetic 
with some omissions and some additions to bring it 
down to the arithmetic of today. At the same time our 
pupils begin a study of the other mathematical sub- 
jects which more or less parallel the work of arithmetic. 

In order that all the work in mathematics may be inter- 
related, we have but one teacher for a unit course. The 
same teacher gives instruction daily in mathematics to 
the same classes, regardless of the topics studied. 

Only by such a plan — one teacher for all topics — 
can the course we are following be well administered. 
The relative success of the various pupils in the topics 
covered can only be appreciated by one whose instruc- 
tion covers the whole field. 

In introductory Accounting we cover in our junior 
high school work much of the usual seventh year ele- 
mentary work. Some of the examples and problems 
usually found in the seventh year, however, we postpone 
until the eighth and ninth school years. Some of the 
topics formerly studied in the eighth and ninth school 
years we place for the first treatment (in simple form) 
earlier in the course. 

In Algebra we make a beginning so gradual that the 
student of arithmetic scarcely knows where his arithme- 
tic left off and his algebra began. We give arithmeti- 
cal values to algebraic symbols and review our arith- 
metics as our algebra advances. We attempt to approach 
algebra through the simplest formulae for which sym- 
bols are used and by well graded problems make each 
step both rational and easy. We endeavor to teach the 
earlier algebra (if not all of this subject) from the view- 
point of possible use or at least in a way to forecast its 
possible use to those who are to go farther. 



GENERAL INTRODUCTORY MATHEMATICS 133 

We endeavor to see that the algebra of our junior 
high school never becomes so enamoured of its abstrac- 
tions that possible applications in actual scientific prac- 
tice can be at any time overlooked. 

A knowledge of Geometry (as of algebra) becomes a 
part of the pupil's intellectual equipment by a gradual 
process of infiltration, rather than as of old, by a direct 
frontal attack in force. 

Some time when the pupil is studying arithmetic the 
work is turned into a study of dimensions — as it is in 
the elementary school course, but with this difference that 
in the junior high school it becomes a point of departure 
into new fields, though the pupil for weeks may not 
realize it. Studies in square measure and, in cubic 
measure lead to problems of construction involving the 
compass, ruler and, possibly, the protractor. From a 
study of measured lines and distances, the pupil ad- 
vances to a study of the relation lines without measure- 
ments in feet and inches. 

Accompanying this work, or preceding it, in some 
instances, comes a study of geometrical construction. 
Indeed we will all be inclined to agree- that demonstra- 
tive geometry should follow, rather than precede, con- 

Note. As a teacher of high school physics I found that 
for years pupils who had "passed the Regents in Algebra" 
were still as helpless as babes before such a simple statement 
as "power times power distance equals weight times weight 
distance" when expressed by symbols in : P X PD = W X WD. 

As for the relations between volume and pressure in gases 
the pupils were simply floored by the formulas: 

1 V P 1 

Voc^ VxP= C ^ = ^ 

Each year in the work in physics I spent, in the aggregate, 
two weeks teaching the most rudimentary applied algebra to 
a class that had passed in "Algebra through quadratics." 



134 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

structive and inventional work, but at no point do we 
divorce the earliest steps in geometry from the arithme- 
tic that is being studied with it, so that we have no sepa- 
rate inventional geometry. In geometry, as in acount- 
ing and algebra, we favor a modified spiral treatment, 
planning to review at least once, practically all the topics 
taken up the first semester of study, carrying those topics 
that need farther treatment so far as practicable to the 
same degree of difficulty as now prescribed for high 
school students. However, nowhere in our first semes- 
ter's work do we entirely lose contact for any length of 
time with the possible application of geometry in prob- 
lems of measurement and construction. The problems, 
graded in difficulty, accompany many propositions, or 
in some cases, precede them, so that each proposition 
and its problems are integral parts of what may be a 
very simple yet very real engineering project. 

Without committing ourselves too far to the recap- 
itulation theory, we are at least sure that the teaching 
of geometry is immensely enhanced by studying, as 
we advance, the historical development of the common 
use of geometry in the field of engineering. At the 
end of our junior high school study of geometry, the 
straight demonstrative geometry predominates, having 
been introduced gradually, month by month. But in our 
junior high school mathematics we do not attempt more 
than half, possibly not more than one-third of the propo- 
sitions of the so-called Harvard list. 

III. The arrangement of the various sub-topics of our 
General Introductory Mathematics is an important, but 
not yet a settled problem. There are many reasons, 
chiefly the reason of difficulty of subject-matter, that 
suggest a parallel treatment as advisable, so for a while 
we alternate introductory algebra and geometry and 
each is taught in connection with the work in arithmetic. 



GENERAL INTRODUCTORY MATHEMATICS 135 

A series of diagrams may best show the three approxi- 
mate divisions of the five weekly recitations that we have 
tried. 



ii. 



in. 



Fir si Year 
7A 7B 



Aritk. 3. 
Geom. 2. 

Arith. 3. 
Geom. 2. 



Second Year 
8A SB 



Acct. 2. 
Alg. 3. . 

Acct. 2. 
Alg. 3. . 



Third Year 
9A 9B 



Arith. 5 


Geom. 5 




Alg. 5 


Acct. 5 




Alg. 5 


Geom. 5 





Accounting") 

or 
Algebra > 5 

or 
Geometry J 



Commercial 
Acct. 5 



Academic 
Geom. 5 I Alg. 



After trying all these combinations, the one designated 
as III seems to be the best fitted to meet our needs, it 
being remembered that the division of the five weekly rec- 
itation periods indicates the relative daily emphasis, 
rather than any sharp day by day differentiation of the 
introductory work into wholly separate types of work 
called by separate names. 



Examinations and Credit 

Experiments have shown that our brighter pupils can 
(and do) at Speyer School cover all the required work in 
arithmetic and one half year's work in algebra and 
one half year's work in geometry by the completion of 
their ninth school year. We then send these pupils to 



136 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

the senior high school where they sustain themselves in 
second term algebra and second term geometry quite as 
well as their fellows from the first year old style high 
school course. 

As a result of polling our second year classes, we have 
found to our surprise that easily the best liked subject, 
voted so even by some who failed, was Introductory 
Mathematics. We consider such a vote evidence that 
the kind of introductory mathematics just described is 
not the bug-bear some would have us think. 

However, though a high percentage of our boys later 
pass the uniform New York State Regents in algebra 
and geometry, they do not, it must be admitted, enter 
these examinations on quite an equal footing with those 
who have taken the old time college entrance courses 
as given in the senior high school. There are some 
examples, possibly some topics, that they find very 
difficult — and yet there are a great number of things 
they know how to do with algebra and geometry that 
the average high school pupil does not know how to do. 
This skill, previous uniform New York State exami- 
nations have not undertaken to test. 

Experiment and experience only will prove whether 
our Speyer boys who go on to college will use their 
elementary algebra or geometry to better advantage 
in the higher mathematics they may later elect, but we 
all will be inclined to grant that the pupil who goes no 
further than high school has positively gained some- 
thing more unquestionably worth while from our special 
course than he would gain from a study confined to 
college preparatory algebra under the old intensive plan. 

Our two most progressive New York City boys' high 
schools — Stuyvesant (Scientific-Technical) and DeWitt 
Clinton (General-Academic) have already put into oper- 



GENERAL INTRODUCTORY MATHEMATICS 137 

ation a first high school (ninth school) year of mathe- 
matics which serves as an introduction to the whole field 
of advanced work in algebra, geometry and trigo- 
nometry. Into such a course our pupils naturally pass 
easily and with full credit. The tendency in secondary 
school mathematics appears to be wholly toward the 
introductory course in mathematics which we have been 
following at Speyer School. 

Naturally, believing in our work, we are anxious to 
see modifications in our second year high school work 
that will permit us to show wherein our pupils excel 
those who follow the older course, including such prob- 
lems as involve the reading of graphs or the solving of 
formulas. 

In a word as a result of study and experiment, we have 
become convinced: — 

1. That much in mathematics that has been considered 
too difficult for students of junior high schools has been 
made so by its old style treatment. 

2. That there is much in accounting, geometry, alge- 
bra and trigonometry that is no harder than some of the 
arithmetic formerly prescribed for the seventh and eighth 
years. 

3. That a modified spiral treatment such as we are try- 
ing, with sequence still open to experiment, is decidedly 
worth while. 

4. That we should omit to a large degree, if not wholly, 
work that seems to have won a place simply because it 
was hard and substitute for some of this, work that is 
of real value in other lines of scientific endeavor. 

5. That, while we are experimenting, some options 
should be given the junior high school to gain college 
entrance credits for work that is at least of as great, if 
not indeed of far greater value than that in which high 



138 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

school pupils are (or have been until recently) tested by 
uniform college entrance examinations. 



QUESTIONS 

1. What difficulties usually attend the pupil's selection of 

courses in senior high school mathematics? 

2. To what extent is the pupil's difficulty in doing creditable 

work in senior high school mathematics due to the in- 
herent difficulty of the subject and to what extent to the 
customary method of its presentation? 

3. Enlarge upon the difficulties that depend more upon method 

than upon subject-matter in accounting, algebra, geom- 
etry, trigonometry? 

4. Outline a plan for carrying General Introductory Mathe- 

matics as a unified two year course with a separation 
of courses for the third year. 

5. Why is it necessary to have one and the same teacher cover 

all the subdivisions of the mathematical field for each 
separate class of junior high school pupils? 

6. What advantages may such a general introductory course 

give its pupils over the old sequence of subjects in mathe- 
matics ? 



CHAPTER VIII 
INTRODUCTORY FOREIGN LANGUAGE 

No experimental school whether elementary, second- 
ary or of college rank can be wholly free to test out 
theories that, so far at least as the premises are con- 
cerned, may seem worthy. 

For an experimental junior high school the field is 
twice limited because whatever liberties we may take 
with the methods of instruction, we are still confined 
to such subject-matter as the senior high schools and the 
colleges demand. Not until we have an entire school 
sequence from kindergarten to university that is free from 
outside dictation can many worth-while theories be given 
a fair trial. 

Of no group of subjects is this more true than of the 
so-called Foreign Language Group — whether they be 
"dead" languages like Greek and Latin, or "modern" 
languages like French, German and Spanish. 

The one great experiment awaiting trial is the exper- 
iment of sending a group of pupils through high school 
and college with no training in Foreign Language at all. 
This proposal is not, as may seem, an attack on all 
foreign language study, but rather a proposal to get down 
to some sound basis for evaluating foreign language 
work. 

If two groups of one hundred pupils as near alike in 
native ability as psychological tests could estimate them, 
were started in the junior high school at the same time 

139 



140 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

toward that distant goal, college graduation, along two 
separate paths — the one taking Greek or Latin and 
French or German or Spanish (two foreign languages 
at least) and the other taking no foreign languages at all, 
we might after ten years, or perhaps earlier, have at 
least some slight objective basis for measuring the com- 
parative educational value of the two types of work. 

To be still more worthy of acceptance, our data should 
be checked up some ten years later still by the successes 
or failures which marked the careers of our two hundred 
pupils when they were settled in their life work. 

Having no such experiment as a present probability, 
we are left almost wholly at sea in the matter of eval- 
uating foreign language study, especially the value of 
such study when it receives no conscious use other than 
that of permitting college entrance and helping to se- 
cure a college or university degree. 

There was a time when the study of a foreign lan- 
guage, especially the study of Latin marked a man as 
"educated" and a probable leader. To a certain extent 
there is still more or less social deference paid the man 
who has passed through six or eight years of Latin and 
five or six years of Greek. 

However, as in these later days, more and more men of 
national prominence and great national service reach 
such heights without the help of the classics, the po- 
sition claimed for language as a sine qua non in higher 
education has been greatly weakened. With, the modern 
emphasis on what a man can do rather than on what he 
has studied, even the social distinction conferred by a 
study of "the classics" has been lessened, though by no 
means obliterated. 

Latin has, however, furnished and may still furnish, 
one wholly undebatable service in weeding out those 



INTRODUCTORY FOREIGN LANGUAGE 141 

would-be students who have no stomach for disagree- 
able tasks. If one of our best engineering colleges once 
required Latin for admission (though it never teaches 
a word of Latin in its halls) it may have done so be- 
cause those who have studied Latin have given some in- 
dication of being hard-working students. The boy who 
has "passed" in Cicero's Orations and Virgil's Aeneid 
may be truly considered as showing some promise of 
being able to enter upon the equally difficult studies of 
the engineer. 

It may, however, happen in the not far distant future 
that even this ultra conservative school of engineering 
will find the modern tests for general intelligence a better 
means of selecting its future pupils than by the elimi- 
nating power of Latin which it so recently employed. 

However, in our present conception of the duties of 
our free schools and colleges there has been a great 
change from the conceptions held even a generation ago. 

Once, we were to select and train leaders. Those who 
failed were given scant consideration. The failing pupils 
merely classified themselves as those unfitted for the 
higher fields of learning. 

Today we are coming to believe that it is the duty of 
our free high schools and even our colleges to provide 
profitable instruction for all who have the time, money 
and ambition to continue their education whatever be 
the mental make-up of the applicants. 

Once pupils failed if they found the work too difficult. 
Today schools fail if they propose work which their 
pupils cannot do. More and more the conviction is 
spreading that society is morally and economically bound 
to offer education to each growing youth according to his 
youthful capacity, just as society expects to draw ser- 
vice from each mature man according to his mature 
strength. 



142 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

If the earlier centuries were chiefly concerned with the 
higher education of their leaders, this century is chiefly 
concerned with the higher education of its masses. How- 
ever, it remains for the educational leaders of this gen- 
eration and the next to discover ways and means of pro- 
viding education for each according to his capacity. 

The error we seem to be making is that of supposing 
that the subjects of study once used to select and train 
leaders are still the subjects which must be studied by 
all who would prolong their education beyond the gram- 
mar school period. 

All this is particularly pertinent in any discussion of 
foreign language study. Greek and Latin may still be 
studied with profit it may develop, but Greek and Latin 
may no longer be employed chiefly, if not solely, as a 
barrier to the higher education of those who cannot sur- 
vive such tests as these foreign languages may offer. Pu- 
pils may still be kept from promotion in Greek and 
Latin if they evince no ability to learn these languages, 
but only from promotion in Greek and Latin not from 
all promotion as heretofore. 

The necessity of abandoning the use of Latin and 
Greek for their selective value becomes more and more 
recognized by students of education who have found that 
men have achieved marked success in other lines who 
were practically devoid of any "language sense" capable 
of even average development. 

More and more it is being disclosed that an inability 
to learn a "dead" language is not of and by itself any 
significant barrier to marked success in other unrelated 
lines of endeavor. 

The same situation exists when we consider the study 
of modern languages, though these studies may never 
be consciously employed as barriers to all educational 



INTRODUCTORY FOREIGN LANGUAGE 143 

advancement in the same way that the "dead" languages 
have been. 

So far as foreign languages in the junior high school 
are concerned, we must, before we decide to teach them 
at all, make up our minds that if we teach them they 
must be suited to the capacities of our pupils and fed 
to them only at the rate at which each pupil may mas- 
ticate and absorb them without danger of mental indi- 
gestion. 

And now having gotten this far, we come face to face 
with an unavoidable compulsion. We must teach for- 
eign languages in the junior high schools because the 
senior high school (in turn dominated by the colleges) 
requires it. Even if we were convinced that foreign lan- 
guage study were less profitable than other work that 
might replace it, we would be causing our pupils to 
suffer a still greater loss if we refused to give them work 
in a foreign language as one of the passports required 
for continuing their education. 

The time may come when our American colleges will 
accept the position so strongly taken by one of our 
foremost professors of Modern Language, Dr. Calvin 
Thomas of Columbia University. Only a short time be- 
fore his death, Professor Thomas contributed an article 
to a round table discussion on Why Pupils Should Study 
Foreign Language. Most of the professors concerned 
themselves with arguments for the study of their spe- 
cialty. Professor Thomas, however, said in effect, "Why 
should a pupil study a foreign language? Ask the pupil 
himself to get the answer. Test his answer and make 
sure he can uphold his position. Too many boys and men 
are studying foreign languages because of misconceptions, 
or because it may be the style. The one valid argument 
for admitting a young man to the study of a foreign 



144 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

language is evidence that he will use the language after 
he leaves college because he needs it to secure certain 
definite and worthy aims." 

The time may come, and many believe it must come, 
when youths in the junior high school will be brought 
before the court to show cause why they should be per- 
mitted to attempt the study of a foreign language through 
the use they will make of it as a language and not as a 
ticket of admission to the senior high school or to the 
college. 

However, until all college professors take this point of 
view, we in the junior high school must consider that we 
have no escape, even did we desire it, from the necessity 
of providing foreign language instruction for at least 
such of our pupils as show promise or even show pur- 
pose of entering institutions of learning. 

Surely if a foreign language is to be taught at all 
the junior high school is the place to begin it. It has 
long been known that children learn the intricacies of 
a foreign spoken tongue far more easily than do adults, 
just as it is equally a matter of experience that most 
adults learning a new language are frequently unable to 
speak it without a brogue or accent, however perfectly 
they may learn to write it. 

From this situation which we might call a language 
axiom we can gain some idea of the approach which we 
should select for the modern languages at least. Since 
childhood is the' one best time for beginning the study of 
a new language, the earlier we begin that work in our 
junior high school the better it will be for our pupils' 
ultimate success. 

However, having a second time reached a point of 
agreement upon what is educationally reasonable, we are 
again confronted with a condition that may force us 



INTRODUCTORY FOREIGN LANGUAGE 145 

to abandon that which is reasonable in theory to accept 
perforce that which is reasonable under existing con- 
ditions. 

An experiment worked out at Speyer School in 1916 
to 1918 will illustrate this point. 

All things being considered, it was decided that since 
practically all pupils who would continue their edu- 
cation must sooner or later have some foreign language, 
the study of Latin, as a basic tongue for much of English 
and the Romance languages, might well be undertaken 
first. It was further decided that all our pupils should 
first study the new language as a child learning the lan- 
guage should study it, by the natural or direct method, 
rather than from the artificial approach through grammar 
rules so largely followed by adults in the higher schools. 

Consequently there was planned a course in Latin 
which began in the first junior high school year with 
using Latin as a spoken language and adding only such 
rudimentary grammar as might be unavoidable. The 
teacher and the boys used only Latin as a means of con- 
versation in the class room, not because this in itself was 
valuable, but as a device to add interest. They learned 
to read and write Latin (simple Latin of course) much 
in the way they had learned to read and write their own 
English tongue, without much realization of the rules 
of grammar, certainly with little of the point of view 
which considers Latin as all grammar. 

In the class room among; other things attempted great 
emphasis was laid upon the English words with Latin 
ancestry and no new Latin word was taken up without 
a search for possible English descendants. Taking, for 
example, the Latin sckibo — I write, the pupils were 
required to bring in lists of English words that had been 
derived from some form of this verb's Latin root, as 



146 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

scribe, inscribe, script, conscript, conscription, etc., etc. 
In this way the Latin was made to contribute most de- 
cidedly to a better English vocabulary and the boys 
were learning more about English while studying Latin. 
Gradually more and more Latin grammar was introduced 
until a fair grammatical understanding was thought to 
have been secured. Finally the boys were promoted to 
the tenth school year, or second high school year, in an 
old time four year high school. 

It was then that trouble began. Our boys were at 
once reported as being wholly unable to do the work 
in Latin required in the senior high school. They were 
not only failures, but worse than failures, because they 
had a totally wrong point of view. These boys insisted 
upon considering Latin as something natural to be 
spoken, read, or written as a living language, instead of 
regarding it as an intricate puzzle to be worked out and 
accounted for grammatically word by word. The boys in 
turn complained that their teachers cared little or nothing 
about the content of what was written or read, but only 
about the reasons in the grammar justifying the use of 
a certain word in a certain sentence according to its 
gender, number and case, if a noun, or its voice, mood, 
tense, person and number if a verb. 

Naturally two such opposing points of view could not 
endure in the same class room and naturally our Speyer 
boys had to begin Latin all over again, or else join special 
coaching classes designated to eradicate their earlier 
notions of Latin study. 

It has never been settled to our own satisfaction 
whether or not this natural and direct approach to Latin 
would in the end — were it continued for three years 
more — make better or poorer students of Latin and of 
English than does the established plan. We have, how- 



INTRODUCTORY FOREIGN LANGUAGE 147 

ever, been unquestionably convinced that under present 
conditions a direct method approach to old time Latin 
instruction is an almost impossible undertaking. 

Returning once more to the study of the theory, there 
is much to be said for Latin as the introductory language 
for the junior high school. In addition to its possible use 
as Latin, it may have a marked influence upon the pu- 
pils' written and spoken English. The very use of a 
Latin vocabulary involves a considerable study of Eng- 
lish synonyms and leads a pupil to be more careful in his 
use of English words in writing or speaking to convey 
that certain thought or shade of meaning that he has 
in his mind. Latin will help him frequently also to find 
the true meaning of an English word about which he is 
in doubt. Therefore because of its general possibilities 
as a help to English writing, reading and speaking, as 
a help to the later possible study of French, Italian or 
Spanish, as a help to the understanding of technical terms 
in the professions and last but not least, as a very prac- 
tical help in college entrance, we may decide that Latin 
is our best introductory language for junior high school 
work. 

However, even here we again meet practical obstacles 
that may again keep us from what we believe is best, 
because we must adjust ourselves to conditions as we 
find them. 

In the first place as we have seen, the approach to 
Latin must be the old formal grammatical, artificial ap- 
proach which is least well suited to our junior high school 
pupils' age. In the second place, because we are a junior 
high school and our teachers as yet are generally paid 
less than senior high school teachers, we may find (as 
many have found) that we cannot secure teachers of 
Latin sufficiently well qualified to undertake this work. 



148 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

Teachers of Latin, skilled teachers, are apt to be at- 
tracted only to senior high school, or college, work, though 
if ever skill in Latin teaching is needed, it is needed in 
teaching beginning Latin. No other subject seems so 
much affected by the first year's work. 

So it may be, despite our decision that introductory 
Latin would be desirable — especially a modified Eng- 
lish-Latin — as an introduction to foreign language study, 
we may nevertheless have to abandon its employment 
until the situation of methods and salaries has grown 
more favorable. 

We may then have to make our selection, since we seem 
forced to select some foreign language, from French, 
German, Italian and Spanish, with the probability that 
not more than one in a hundred of our pupils will use 
any one of these living languages except to gain high 
school graduation or a college degree. 

Our choice of a modern foreign language then. may 
have to be made upon the best basis possible — even 
where some of our reasons may seem to be (and may 
really be) indefensible upon truly educational grounds. 

Taking our pupils as a whole we may find it best 
to select that one foreign language that promises to serve 
them best by its use in one of the following ways: 

(1) As a probable aid to their material business or 
professional success. 

(2) As a ticket of admission to high school and col- 
lege. 

(3) As a means (under a well-trained teacher) of 
learning how a foreign language should be studied. 

(4) As a source of individual culture and refinement. 

(5) As an introduction to a people that it would be 
well to know and appreciate more intimately. 

(6) As an introduction to a literature that might well 
be read and enjoyed in the original. 



INTRODUCTORY FOREIGN LANGUAGE 149 

Each school considering its own school population, its 
pupils' probable occupations, its senior high school limi- 
tations, will have to make its own decision. Yet nothing 
seems more essential than that each junior high school 
(unless it have at least a thousand pupils) decides upon 
one language that on the whole, best meets the six 
possible uses we have enumerated. 

If we are to allow one class to learn Latin, one German, 
and one French, we are, as we shall speedily see, soon 
to run into a tangle that will make it in every way 
worse for a pupil to study a language of his own selec- 
tion, rather than one we might have chosen for him. 

If our pupils are separated into small groups, each 
taking a different language, we shall be apt to find that 
the usual removals from town and the sudden calls 
to employment that cut the class numbers down as the 
grades advance, will soon result in a class too small to 
permit us to employ a teacher to instruct it. Equally 
serious will be the influence of small language groups 
upon our entire school plan of homogeneous speed-group- 
ing, planned to advance each pupil according to his abil- 
ity, for our speed-group plan fails if we must put into one 
foreign language class the speediest with the slowest. 
Finally, if we are allowed to have but one teacher for 
each language, or one for two languages, all language 
instruction must wholly stop if that one teacher is ill or 
called away. 

On the other hand, everything planned for the general 
good of the pupils of our school is better secured if we 
maintain a unified department of foreign language — 
one language and one only. 

The pupil may now be placed with a speed-group that 
enables him to work and study with markedly better 
results. He may help create an atmosphere in the school, 



150 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

in which he and his fellows may learn the new language 
more pleasurably. He may find opportunities for using 
his new language in the school increased in proportion 
to the number of his fellows that are studying it. He 
may find his own daily schedule of work made more 
suitable by being able to recite in foreign language 
at a time when it is most suited to his personal program,, 
rather than at a time which must be suited to the pro- 
gram of his one language teacher. He may, finally, be 
sure that he will be able to pursue his language study 
for the course without fear of- being forced to drop it 
toward the end because his class may have become too 
small to warrant a teacher's assignment. 

It is not our purpose here to select, or even to recom- 
mend, any one foreign language for junior high school 
study, unless that one language be Latin taught as it 
may yet be taught for its use in English as well as for 
its own peculiar ends. 

However, from our experimental study at Speyer 
School, we have arrived at some conclusions that may 
be pertinent here, even though we may not say these 
conclusions are inevitable in other situations. 

To begin with, the best introduction to the study of a 
foreign language appears to be six months of study 
about the people who use the language — how they live 
and how their ancestors lived — rather than by a direct 
beginning upon the language itself. Men and women 
who have specialized in the study of teaching English 
literature tell us that the one most vital step in the good 
teaching of literature is to secure the proper mood or 
setting for the masterpiece before ever a word of it is 
read. Equally, the most advanced students of human 
psychology tell us that our physical actions and the 
functions of our bodily organs are tremendously affected 



INTRODUCTORY FOREIGN LANGUAGE 151 

by our state of mind. If we are greatly angered, certain 
chemicals are poured into our blood to increase our 
physical power of resistance far above normal, blood 
flows from the brain to the muscles, certain organs al- 
most stop work and others work at double speed. All 
these things are nature's way to prepare us to survive 
in the struggle that formerly, at least, was an accom- 
paniment of anger. When angry we may at least strike 
harder even if we may not think as well. Equally, 
in other emotional states, there is an inevitable bodily 
preparation for the situation that once, for age after age, 
accompanied, or shortly followed, each particular emo- 
tion. 

Certain it is that a predisposition to like a new sub- 
ject of study, once both emotionally and rationally se- 
cured, appears to carry the beginner into the new sub- 
ject and over its difficulties with a spirit of achievement 
and a determination to succeed that gives the one with 
such a predisposition an enormous advantage over one 
not so predisposed. 

Thus it may be found in a study of a new language 
that it is more often important to begin well than to begin 
soon. Given four years of w x ork to be done by adoles- 
cents in a new field, some will be found who believe that 
in the end a greater total accomplishment may be secured 
by spending no insignificant fraction of the four years in 
first establishing an intellectual and emotional predis- 
position to like the work that is to be done. If we accept 
this basis temporarily for our junior high school work, 
the first six months of any language study may well be 
spent upon a daily study of the people who speak the 
language, their home country, its history and its geogra- 
phy. Its government past and present will be con- 
sidered, though not -too formally. Especially will its 



152 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

national heroes and heroines receive attention as even 
will its legends, myths and superstitions. Though per- 
haps in no formal and scholarly way, our pupils may 
yet be led to enter and become in imagination a part of 
the life of the country whose language they are to learn 
— to know what its people think of themselves and of 
their neighbors — to know what its children study in 
school or play at in their free time. Finally, our pupils 
may be led to read in translation some of the master- 
pieces of this nation's best authors. 

All this precedes any formal study of the language 
itself, though it does not end by any means when the 
formal study begins. The advantage that the junior 
high school has over all other schools where language is 
studied lies in the fact that we have time to make this 
leisurely beginning when others must rush ahead to 
cover the number of pages of text or grammar that 
the authorities prescribe. 

In our junior high school the study of the language as 
a language will follow several months of this gradual 
social introduction and will, if a modern language, of 
course, be the direct or natural method — not the gram- 
matical. Later, as the need for grammar becomes more 
and more appreciated, it will become more and more 
prominent, but not until the pupils can speak to each 
other in the new tongue with considerable accuracy of 
pronunciation and some fluency upon simple matters 
near at hand, will the emphasis upon grammar become 
what our senior high school friends might consider nor- 
mal. Thus the junior high school course fits itself to 
conventional procedure. 

So much depends, however, upon the teacher who em- 
ploys this method and her own skill and tact in using it 
that we may still consider this approach as in the ex- 



INTRODUCTORY FOREIGN LANGUAGE 153 

perimental stage. It does not inevitably secure good re- 
sults in all hands — no more for that, does any method 
new or old. Yet in the hands of a genuinely skillful 
teacher the possibilities of this approach are truly mar- 
velous. 

It may not be aside from the point to consider in closing 
certain abilities especially desirable in a junior high 
school teacher in Foreign Language. In addition to the 
ability needed for the introductory months we have con- 
sidered, there are other abilities greatly in demand to 
meet our newer junior high school aims and purposes. 
Especially do these newer abilities need emphasis in the 
colleges or normal schools where our teachers of foreign 
languages are trained. 

As a first ability, or capacity, that needs training, 
we may consider the ability or capacity to discover, or 
to invent ways and means of furnishing the pupil with 
an opportunity to use in an English-speaking community 
his knowledge of the foreign language he studies, great 
or small as that knowledge may be. This ability appears 
rarely to be sufficiently emphasized as valuable in a 
teacher of foreign languages. In most schools the use 
of the language seems to be almost wholly limited to 
the school period in which it is taught, though some 
senior schools form language clubs, publish language 
papers, correspond with children of the country whose 
tongue they study and even stage modern language 
plays. Yet all this is often regarded as something not 
only extra-curricular, but exotic or artificial. It is al- 
most never considered a requirement. Teachers who 
now undertake this work must still do so on their own 
initiative and at their own expense of money and free 
time. Are we therefore unreasonable in expecting that 
school systems, as well as those who are preparing to 



154 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

teach a foreign language, will be led from the start to 
regard as an essential part of all modern language work 
the making provision not only for learning the language, 
but for using it? Indeed, is it unreasonable to expect 
that some provision * for the use of the language might 
well be made a prerequisite for its being taught at all? 
If more college professors, superintendents, principals 
and teachers were trained merely to accept this view- 
point, still much good would have been accomplished. 

* A few suggestions as to ways of keeping up the study of 
the language that is being learned, supplied by Miss Denver 
of Speyer School. 

1. Subscriptions to a magazine or newspaper printed in the 

foreign language. 

2. Attendance at theatres, churches, or social gatherings, where 

foreign idiom may be heard. 

3. A definite daily period of conscious thinking in the foreign 

language. 

4. The possession of a complete set of books used in study- 

ing the language. The loss of the books "loaned" by the 
school is often the first break in any continued interest in 
subjects in the high school. 

5. The teaching of the language to some other person. 

6. The reading of short articles, poems or news items which 

are to be reproduced in writing. 

7. The habit of using the foreign tongue in connection with 

some particular activity, or person, or phase of life; for 
instance, the keeping of a diary, the keeping of one's per- 
sonal expense account, etc. (I knew of a German who 
had retained an amazing amount of English after years of 
life in China and claimed to have done it by holding long 
conversations in English with his dog!) 

8. A system of rapid mental drills — checking up on vocabulary, 

translation of sentences taken at random from general con- 
versation, rapid sight translation of items of interest (all 
words not known or new words and technical expressions 
to be looked up and noted carefully.) 

9. Correspondence with a native of the country whose lan- 

guage has been studied. 






INTRODUCTORY FOREIGN LANGUAGE 155 

As a second desirable, though but slightly emphasized, 
ability in the training of modern language teachers, we 
might name the ability to show language relations — 
the ability to connect the language with the earlier 
tongues from which in part it was derived — and with 
the modern English to which it may contribute. 

Is it unreasonable to expect the pupil who is studying 
his new vocabulary to tell both the Latin ancestors and 
the English descendants of the word he studies — this 
not so much perhaps for the sake of the foreign language 
as for the sake of the pupil's general cultural training? 

Is it unreasonable in us to expect that even the be- 
ginner's book will, in its simple vocabulary, call some 
attention by its type arrangement to the common an- 
cestry of the foreign and the English words? If it did 
this, would it not be a better book than the one which did 
not? In default of such a text may not the teacher 
be expected to supply the deficiency? Not that we 
would introduce the study of comparative philology into 
•elementary work in foreign language, but that we would 
never pass over without mention foreign words that 
.have sons or cousins in English without plainly calling 
-attention to this relationship when the foreign word was 
met with for the first time. 

The third of these newer abilities, or capacities, that 
we might like to see made a serious aim, is an ability on 
the part of the teacher of foreign language to forecast 
with a considerable degree of accuracy the probable suc- 
cess or failure of the pupils in his class. The psychol- 
ogists are working out prognostic tests with a high de- 
gree of probability for general school success. The next 
few years may witness, as we are witnessing, the pub- 
lication of prognostic tests in modern languages that may 
prove of equal value. While these tests are in the making 



156 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

it seems reasonable to expect that every modern language 
teacher should have his eyes constantly open for lan- 
guage situations that will be of prognostic value. Other 
things being equal, the teacher who is trained to work 
along this line will be a better teacher than the one 
without such training. 

As a corollary of this should come the right of a 
teacher, trained as we have indicated, to debar from a 
further study of foreign language those who show un- 
doubted signs of approaching inevitable failure. Our 
Speyer records show that all the pupils who fail in our 
introductory work in foreign language, but who insist 
upon repeating their work in senior high school, fail 
again as lamentably as ever. Could we but direct to 
other subjects those who have no hope of ultimate success 
we could save both pupils and teachers many hours of 
wasted effort. Naturally the power to select must come 
before the power to debar. However, when one is es- 
tablished, the other will not long be withheld. 

In the meantime, let us all, teachers of foreign lan- 
guages included, hasten the day when the colleges will 
recognize that young men and women may still be de- 
sirable student material even if they show an entire in- 
ability to pursue with reasonable hope of success the 
study of any foreign language. 

QUESTIONS 

1. What is the one great experiment in Foreign Language 

still awaiting trial and why cannot it be tried now? 

2. What educational service (aside from information and cul- 

ture) has Latin furnished? 

3. What change of view as to the success and failure of pu- 

pils characterizes the modern high school? 

4. What arguments can I advance against using Foreign 

Language for its selective value? 



INTRODUCTORY FOREIGN LANGUAGE 157 

5. Why must Foreign Language be taught at all? 

6. What are the chief arguments for and against the adop- 

tion of Latin as the introductory foreign language for 
a junior high school? 

7. What qualifications should our introductory foreign lan- 

guage possess. 

8. Why should a junior high school attempt but one for- 

eign language? 

9. What form of introduction to foreign language study 

would I propose and why? 
10. What newer abilities may we expect the junior high school 
teacher of foreign language to possess ? 



CHAPTER IX 
GENERAL INTRODUCTORY SCIENCE 

When any new subject of instruction applies for ad- 
mission to the high school curriculum, it is at once the 
object of attack from the proponents of all the sub- 
jects that may possibly suffer exclusion if the new sub- 
ject is granted admission. 

General Science, though in some communities still 
fighting for recognition, may be considered on the whole 
as having gained a place in the junior high school in- 
struction, though it still holds that place under the fire 
oi criticism from sympathizers of the subjects that have 
yielded ground. 

It is far better for us not to consider whether General 
Science is better than Latin, or Greek, or Ancient His- 
tory, but rather to consider whether the training and in- 
formation given by Science is so valuable that we cannot 
possibly omit it from our program of studies. 

We are told that each pioneer American home a 
century or more ago was almost completely a community 
in itself. Not only did the father of the family build his 
own home, plough, plant and cultivate his own fields, 
but he gathered and disposed of his own harvest. Be- 
side this he doctored his own stock for their ailments, 
made or mended his own harness and wagons, built his 
own roads, cut, hauled and split his own lumber or 
firewood. 

Similarly, the mother of the family, not only prepared 

158 . 



GENERAL INTRODUCTORY SCIENCE 159 

for the members of her household the food which nour- 
ished them, but she also wove their linen or wool, made 
their clothing and even doctored the children when they 
were ill. 

With the increase in our American population and the 
improvement in our methods of transportation and com- 
munication, the isolation of the pioneer family was 
greatly lessened. It became more and more possible for 
the family to cease being an independent community in 
itself and instead, a more or less necessary part of a 
larger group in a village or town. The family no longer 
was obliged to supply all its wants from within its own 
circle, but by the exchange of labor and commodities 
could specialize on that community demand which it 
was best able to supply. Gradually it became possible 
for a group of men living in one American town or city to 
supply a larger and larger territory with the one manu- 
factured article it labored upon, until now the whole 
nation may be reached by the products of some one 
small specialist group. 

In the same way it became possible for a man to spe- 
cialize in not only one field of learning or of trade, but 
finally to specialize in one tiny fraction of that already 
greatly limited field, so that in the extreme today we 
have surgeons that perform one special operation and 
lawyers who undertake but one special kind of case, 
as well as artisans who tighten but one bolt or stitch 
one set of threads. So in America we gradually, by the 
greater knowledge and skill of the specialist have come 
to a division of labor that makes it more and more neces- 
sary that a man become expert in doing some one thing 
and, possibly, as in some kinds of factory work, doing 
but the one thing over and over again year in and year 
out for all his working life. 



160 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

Whether or not this extreme division of labor has made 
on the whole for human happiness may be questioned 
by some philosophers, but no one will dispute the fact 
that to the advances in physical, chemical and biologi- 
cal science this truly wonderful transformation is al- 
most wholly due. 

So it might seem that a study of the forces that have 
made this economic and social change possible could 
claim some consideration in any school curriculum. And 
yet there are still many that will claim in this age of 
specialization that while it may be desirable that some 
men become specialists in the various fields of science, 
still for the rank and file there is no need for 
requiring even elementary general science instruction. 
The leaders in sciencepthese objectors say, must be col-, 
lege or university trained men, so let our schoolboy stick 
to the old and tried curriculum of his fathers, during his* 
pre-college years — there will be time enough for him 
to study science when he reaches college if ever his edu- 
cation goes that far. 

Whatever be our bias for science instruction, we can- 
not entirely pass over the valid points in the criticisms 
that have been raised. Is it necessary that we all know 
something of science, let us ask ourselves, when we can 
so easily buy or hire the products of science to get the 
results we want? 

For example, is it really necessary to our mental equip- 
ment that we understand the principle of the telegraph 
when all we need to know to send a telegram is be able 
to write our message and to pay for its transmission. 
To be sure, every normal boy is enthusiastic about the 
possibility of electrical experimentation; he gets a gen- 
uine joy from his home-made telegraph instrument and 
more and more he is taking up "wireless" for the fun 



GENERAL INTRODUCTORY SCIENCE 161 

of it. Yet after all, is this "Study"? Will it help him to 
do better the things he must do anyway? The answer 
is by no means beyond the possibility of being ques- 
tioned, whichever way we may cast our vote. 

However, there is another wholly different angle from 
which to approach the study of science. It is claimed 
that to the extent that every man, woman and child in 
the nation knows something of the how, the why and 
the wherefore of scientific processes he or she employs, 
to that extent the nation is better prepared for happiness 
and prosperity in times of peace and self defense in 
time of war. 

These proponents of science tell us that it is the emer- 
gency, testing our fitness to survive, which gives us 
a better judgment of the relative value of the things 
we ought to know. To be sure, the unusual demands of 
a great war in which even the children in the home 
were to an extent participants may give us temporarily 
an artificial set of standards and yet it may also give 
us a truer vision of the things that are permanently 
worth while. 

When all the available labor of our nation was so 
recently required for the essential industries and when 
it was considered the height of selfishness to demand 
private and personal service of those whose efforts ap- 
plied elsewhere might help win the war, many a man 
and woman suffered in countless minor and often in 
some major ways because he or she had not the knowledge 
of some homely matters that even the study of 
elementary science might have supplied. 

Can it be that with the introduction of general science 
to the school curriculum we are marking the beginning 
of a new industrial epoch in which, though ever so slowly, 
the pendulum is starting to swing back toward a 






162 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

greater independence of the home from the service of 
the hired specialist? Not that we may ever become in 
any home a world unto ourselves, but that we shall learn 
to use in our homes the products of science, the machines 
and inventions that science supplies, more as masters and 
less as ignorant operators. 

To be sure there will always be men whose services 
in one special field will be so great that they will better 
serve their day and generation by putting all their energy 
;and time upon this single specialty, but for the general 
run of mortals with no such preeminent abilities, may 
not a greater freedom from the necessity of calling upon 
the special knowledge of the outsider make us generally 
more happy and more efficient. 

Has not the division of labor both real and artificial 
l>een carried to an extent that may cripple us as individu- 
als and as a nation? As an example, recently a friend of 
mine had in his cellar a leaky iron water pipe that 
troubled him and he called a plumber to mend it. When 
the job was done my friend found that the drip from 
the water pipe had rusted a small hole in the similar 
iron steam pipe underneath. When my friend asked the 
plumber to mend that also, the plumber indignantly and 
persistently refused. To mend a steam pipe, it appeared, 
was a steamfitter's job and the plumber who touched 
a steam pipe might find himself unable to get employ- 
ment in the entire city. 

Another friend employed, to repair the brick cornices 
of his house, a brick-layer, who in the course of his 
work discovered one loosened slate which he was un- 
willing to fasten by a single nail because that was 
a roofer's job and not his special trade. 

Even as a last example of artificial specialization, a 
paper hanger that I knew had to paint the front of his 



GENERAL INTRODUCTORY SCIENCE 163 

own little shop at midnight lest he be discovered work- 
ing at another's trade. 

A study of the employment conditions in a great city 
may, or may not, convince us that this super-special- 
ization of artisans is a necessary and altogether justi- 
fiable procedure, but it has served its purpose here as an 
illustration of the situation that sooner or later seems 
bound to confront us all, not simply in the field of the 
skilled trades, but in our every day life at home or in 
our special occupations. For the average man today in 
his average American home, whether he rent or own. it, 
the degree of helplessness and dependency which he ex- 
periences even in little things seems almost to have 
reached the maximum. 

Americans as a national group, whatever be their racial 
origin, were once credited with an adaptability, an abil- 
ity to take care of themselves and an ability to invent 
new and better ways of doing things that older national 
groups did not possess. Yet today, aside from our con- 
spicuous examples of specialist inventors, as a nation 
we could scarcely merit any special commendation in 
the field in which we once excelled. 

Our crass ignorance, if not of the how at least of the 
why of things that science daily does for us is, many 
claim, at the bottom of our patent helplessness. We 
speak and read and write our common native language, 
but we have in our division of labor permitted a group 
of men to grow up in our midst speaking a language which 
we do not understand. The engineers in science bring 
us our water, take away our waste, supply us with light 
and heat, transportation and communication, without 
all of which we feel we would not greatly care to survive, 
and yet in our schools we teach little or nothing about 
the work of the men who make these services possible. 



164 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

We take for granted all that is supplied and complain 
that more is not furnished. At the same time we make 
in our schools little or no provision for supplying a con- 
stantly improving type of science instruction, in order 
that future generations may advance as much beyond our 
own in creature comforts as we have advanced over the 
generation that is passing away. 

We even trust to our popular magazines to tell us 
in diluted language the way to care for our own body — 
its diet and its regimen. If we are ill, we call the 
specialist who endeavors to correct in a few weeks the 
results, possibly, of years of ignorant and harmful living. 

Everywhere we let our homes, our household equip- 
ment and, most of all, our own bodies suffer needless loss 
and waste through our own ignorance, and then call upon 
the specialist, be he carpenter, dentist or physician, to 
help cure an entirely preventable situation. 

Any subject or subjects that gave promise of making 
us as a nation or as individuals better able to live more 
useful and more happy lives would deserve consideration. 

If science makes that promise real then science should 
be and must be studied in school no matter what other 
subjects have to lose thereby. 

However, we want to make sure that what we study 
will be of value to us, not primarily to make us scientists, 
but to make us able to use science to help our daily 
living. One difficulty with science instruction in the 
past seems to have been the emphasis laid upon what 
the scientist himself considered fundamentals, but which 
were without significance to the man on the street. In 
chemistry, the most difficult abstractions,, theories and 
laws were proposed for the first semester's study. In 
the elementary grades, physical science often began with 
a discussion of the law of levers, or the determination 






GENERAL INTRODUCTORY SCIENCE 165 

of specific gravity. In a study of the human body — ■ 
supposedly studied as a guide to hygienic living — the 
pupil often began with a study of the bones of the skull. 
And so through all the proposed subjects of instruction 
in science ran the super-emphasis on what the scientist 
himself considered basic and fundamental knowledge for 
an embryo scientist, rather than upon such common in- 
formation as the salesman, the shop keeper, the farmer, 
or the skilled laborer might find worth while. 

If our present point of view is the correct one, we must 
banish the science text-books of the recent past and be- 
gin to work out a new series based upon what science 
does and can do for us, rather than upon what we can 
do for science. We shall use the findings of science when 
and where they apply to our daily living with scant 
professional consideration of the fields of science that 
may furnish us our material. 

In our junior high schools then we will teach General 
Science from the start, because our children need to 
know the ways science helps them to live in the fullest 
sense. We shall teach General Science in order that our 
pupils shall become healthier, happier, more efficient 
workers, whatever be their chosen field. We shall, 
through General Science, teach our pupils to be better 
able to use, intelligently and economically, the products 
which science supplies. We shall teach our pupils to 
depend less upon the hired specialist in workaday science, 
because each pupil will have himself the knowledge that 
formerly only the skilled worker possessed. Finally, 
we shall open up each junior high school pupil's mind to 
the possibilities of taking some part in the world of 
science as a worker in that field, but in our junior high 
school we shall not attempt to give even a rudimentary 
beginning of that training. 



166 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

If in our discussion of junior high school Introductory 
Science we have taken an inordinate amount of time 
before approaching our subject itself it is because we 
need to know why we should teach science at all, rather 
than of what our science subject-matter should consist. 

It might be possible to work out a course of study that 
would satisfy all our previous requirements, but that 
would still, if taught from the wrong point of view, give 
little that our earlier discussion indicated as valuable. 
In our introductory work, we must be surely progressing 
with our feet on the ground. We must be distinctly and 
positively utilitarian in our projects. We must find out 
the things of science that every boy or girl will be helped 
by learning and helped so far as is possible here and now, 
rather than at some future time. 

Because our seventh year pupils are but children with a 
child's point of view, it is more essential that we stress 
at the start how things work, rather than to be- 
gin too early a study of why things work and kill the 
interest that otherwise might be awakened. 

If we are skillful teachers of General Introductory 
Science, we will scarcely ever need ourselves to empha- 
size the why at all, because it is the nature of the 
normal boy or girl to want to follow up this how with 
a why, and it will be our duty to supply the more 
difficult side of science instruction when and where the 
pupil naturally demands it. 

In the city and in the country the content of our 
Introductory General Science course will not be the same, 
because the demands upon the individual are different. 
Even in a single city the neighborhood demands may 
greatly differ and so we may propose a different line 
of initial work for each locality. 

In a community where most of the families live in 



GENERAL INTRODUCTORY SCIENCE 167 

detached houses the earliest science projects may be 
quite different from those taken up by a class whose 
parents live in city flats. So, too, in a rural community, 
the subjects of study in Introductory Science would be 
far other than those taken up in a village or in a town. 

If our point of view is the correct one, then it is im- 
possible for any one to write a text-book in General 
Science that will meet all local situations unless he 
write an encyclopedia from which one is free to select 
the topics that are locally most significant. Indeed 
the best texts now in the market are, in my opinion, those 
that offer the widest possible range for individual 
selection. For the sake of a needless uniformity super- 
visors may require a certain text to be used, but for 
the pupils' sake no text at all is often the better proposi- 
tion, if only the teacher is well informed. 

If we were asked to put down a list of projects for 
introductory science work we should have so hetero- 
geneous a collection that it would defy classification. We 
might start with "How a fountain pen works" and end 
with a study of the various types of washing machines 
now on the market. In another community, we might 
study house-heating, or the refrigeration of food in cold 
storage, or in the family ice-chest. In a rural community, 
we might study septic tanks and end with the selective 
breeding of varieties of wheat. In one neighborhood, we 
might study the checking of malaria and yellow fever 
by the eradication of mosquito breeding places and in 
another we might consider the processes of aeroplane 
construction. The variety of worth-while possibilities 
seems almost infinite. 

In our junior high school work we shall not be greatly 
concerned with abstracting that general body of law 
and theory that underlies the phenomena we study and 



168 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

so marking our work as the rudiments of real science. 
For nine-tenths of our work we shall be content if our 
pupils know how the process or machine works, and a lit- 
tle something too about why it does as it does. 

To be sure the instructor may, on his private memo- 
randum, check off against each science — Biology (Zool- 
ogy, Botany, Human Physiology), Chemistry, or Phys- 
ics — the laws that his pupils have been led to call upon 
in their investigations. Such a list may surprise even 
the scientist himself when completed, but the emphasis 
at the start is not upon the law, but upon its utilization 
in some definite process. 

Care must be used and great skill employed in ar- 
ranging the projects a class may select, in gradations of 
difficulty, so that both the how and the why of the 
processes or machines studied will be suited either to 
the immaturity, or to the advancement, of the pupils 
who are studying it. Not only present interest, but 
equally, present capacity must be considered in arrang- 
ing the course. 

Where text-books in general science are available, the 
use of several texts, certainly not less than four or five, 
is heartily recommended, even though but one book 
per pupil be purchased, so that by using these various 
texts as reference books, the teacher and the pupil may 
be helped in arranging the projects or topics to be studied 
in some sequence based upon their difficulty of compre- 
hension. 

At Speyer School we devote to General Introductory 
Science five weekly periods for each of the junior high 
school years. For at least one year's work three of those 
five weekly periods of school time are devoted to science 
excursions in the field. Our science curriculum is still 
in the process of formation and we do not regard it as 



GENERAL INTRODUCTORY SCIENCE 169 

satisfactory because it is, as yet, far too dependent upon 
a text-book arrangement. 

In proportion as we are able to work out a series 
of graded projects that are of significance in the lives 
of our pupils and in proportion as our teachers are able 
to break away from the conventions of a text-book 
classification on purely logical lines we shall be able to 
realize our aims. 

The greatest problem for us is to find teachers who 
have the originality, the initiative and the information 
necessary for such a course as we are attempting. In 
proportion as our teachers are able to meet these newer 
and more difficult demands, to that extent we are measur- 
ing up to our possibilities. 

Finally, a word of caution is needed to the instructor 
lest our little students of General Introductory Science 
become pseudo-scientists through their own first meager 
study, and imagine that they know "all about" engines, 
or motors, or aeroplanes because they have had some 
tiny glimpse of the principles of science that underlie 
them. 

The good teacher of general science will be careful 
to give full emphasis to the difficulty and the extent of 
each field whose gateway he swings open for the instant. 
If, for example, he explains the principles by which a 
submarine controls its rising or submerging, he will, 
somewhere in the explanation, make it plain that volumes 
need to be studied to thoroughly understand what he so 
superficially elucidates. Let the children know at every 
step that such science as they now are gaining is most 
rudimentary and superficial, even though it is, as far 
as it goes, a glimpse of fundamental truth. 

If there are good reference books in the library, pu- 
pils may be assigned to bring them in for class observa- 



170 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

tion, even when their content is far beyond the 
present intellectual capacity of any one in the class. 
This, indeed, may be necessary to prevent many a young 
enthusiast from turning toward achievement in science 
a mind and an ability that might be far better employed 
in selling goods behind a counter. 

Once in a technical high school, I had the opportunity 
of questioning and testing over a hundred boys who 
professed to have entered this school so that they might 
become civil or electrical engineers. A survey of this 
group found not a single one that had any idea of the 
length of time and amount of study necessary for the 
accomplishment of his professed ambition. Some few 
indeed expected to become electrical engineers after 
one year in high school! These boys had studied elec- 
tricity for about ten lessons or so in their elementary 
school and found it so interesting with bells and buzzers 
and telegraph sounders that they were filled with a de- 
sire to spend a life time in working with the mysterious 
power their home-made batteries produced. For their 
enthusiasm we may have no criticism, but for the teacher 
who let them go without a word of warning, we may have 
serious censure. As teachers of general science in the 
junior high school, let us open the doors of achievement 
in science to the capable and the ambitious, but let us be 
sure our pupils see the inevitable requirements that lie 
just within the threshold. Our pupils must be shown 
at some time on each topic what they have not been 
taught as well as commended upon what they really may 
have learned. 

So, at the conclusion of our discussion, our scientific 
friends may say — decidedly this General Introductory 
Science is not science at all. In this we must perforce 
agree if by science we mean a study of the theories and 



GENERAL INTRODUCTORY SCIENCE 171 

laws of chemistry and of physics and of biology with 
some scant reference to their application in the laboratory. 
Yet if this be not introductory science by what other 
name shall we call it? At least, we know what we are 
doing and why we are doing it, and we are firmly con- 
vinced that it will help our children to do better the 
things they will do anyway. Therefore, let us not be 
disturbed as to whether or not it be science, convinced as 
we are that it is both necessary and vital education. 

QUESTIONS 

1. What are some of the gains that the average American 

family has secured by the division of labor? 

2. What loss in education have American children and adults 

suffered by this division of labor? 

3. What are the chief arguments against emphasizing the 

teaching of scientific laws or principles in the junior 
high school? 

4. If we do not emphasize the laws of science why should 

we teach science at all? 

5. Who are some of the men in my own community upon 

whose knowledge of science (great or small as that "ma v 
be) my pupils' food, clothing and shelter chiefly 
depend ? 

6. Who are some of the specialists whose services we require 

in order to make good losses suffered through our own 
ignorance ? 

7. What may be some of the more worthy aims of General 

Introductory Science in the junior high school? 

8. How may a knowledge of "how things work" as con- 

trasted with "why things work" still be of value? (See 
Professor Briggs' definition) 

9. Why should we begin with a study of "how things work"? 

10. Why should the content of our course differ with the 

community? 

11. What are ten topics or processes in General Science that 

may well be studied in a rural community? 

12. What are ten topics in General Science that may be 

studied in a city. 



172 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

13. What is the greatest problem in introducing General Sci- 

ence instruction in a junior high school? 

14. What caution must all teachers of General Science keep 

constantly in mind in every general science project? 

15. What should our children be taught regarding the edu- 

cation of a scientist? 



CHAPTER X 
INTRODUCTORY SOCIAL SCIENCE 

Let us admit at the beginning of our new chapter that 
we are not most of us intensive students or specialists 
in history, civics, or geography. Let us admit too that 
we are less concerned with what we can give to a study 
of these subjects than what we can get from them for 
our pupils' good. Let us admit further that we may for 
once be leaving the solid ground of precedent and ex- 
perience and be essaying the thin air of theory in our 
discussion. 

Nevertheless, we have, with all our admissions, re- 
served one point of strategic advantage. A history of 
the world might be written by some all-seeing eye based 
upon the men who refused to make progress because 
they knew the thing was impossible. But the histories 
we study naturally cannot tell us of these men who were 
dead to progress while they yet lived. 

So because of our ignorance we may still strive to 
work ahead never knowing as the savants do that we are 
attempting to do that which cannot be done. And yet we 
are not wholly untutored for we have studied history, 
geography and civics at least in elementary and high 
schools and may be studying these subjects still as we at- 
tempt to keep up with the times, in the public press, the 
current magazines and even, occasionally, in the periodi- 
cals of the specialists themselves. Indeed even not so long 
ago some of us may have been entertained or even tempo- 

173 



174 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

rarily amused when printed court records showed one 
of America's foremost producers to have a more limited 
knowledge of the world history than that possessed today 
by many children in school. And yet after sober second 
thought still more of us might have been willing to ex- 
change for America's ultimate happiness a score of our 
best historians for one master mind in business organ- 
ization and mechanical production. 

And yet with all our boasting of ignorance, let us still 
approach this new field with something akin to reverence 
and awe, for what we are, and what our children will be, 
depends to no small extent upon what the past has taught 
us, whether from tradition, sources, social intercourse, 
or written records. 



History 

Of all the subjects in our junior high school program of 
studies, there seems to be the least agreement upon the 
course of study in what used to be called American 
History. I In America we seem to know far better what 
to -put in such a course than what to leave out, with the 
result that most American specialists in history and in 
the teaching of history, / propose today a course for 
children that many grown men and women would find 
it difficult to pursue with credit/ 

Presumably one purpose of teaching history in our 
schools is because it is supposed to have at least some 
influence upon our daily living, helping us to solve 
the present problems we meet as individuals or as social 
groups. As a matter of experience few of us adults who 
have studied the history once required in our free schools 
will be able to furnish any extended evidence that our 
conduct of life or solution of daily problems has been to 



INTRODUCTORY SOCIAL SCIENCE 175 

any marked extent modified by what we learned from the 
history we studied in school. 

And yet we have undoubtedly been strengthened as- 
a people by a common body of historical knowledge, 
because sympathy is based upon acquaintance and ac- 
quaintance consists, in part, of knowing what the other 
man or the rest of our community believes and accepts as 
fact. From a study of the causes that have impelled 
our ancestors to certain courses of action we may be 
unconsciously influenced to courses of action today, that 
we believe to be more or less similar to and in agreement 
with what the founders of our nation are reported to. have 
done. 

However, it is at least worth passing notice to observe- 
that while there may be such a thing as the history of a 
nation or a history of the world, after all what we are 
able to study in text books of history is not history it- 
self, but rather the opinions of some student or students 
of the past as to what once happened and why it hap- 
pened. Even upon such an historical struggle as the 
War for Independence — or as our children know it — 
the Revolutionary War — there is still the greatest di- 
versity of opinion as to the causes of that war, the prog- 
ress of the war itself and, finally, as to many of the- 
results accomplished. If we wish substantiation of this 
disagreement, we have but to compare this same story 
in the text books used in America with those used for 
children of similar ages in England. The more indeed 
we compare even the various text-books us :d in our own 
American free schools, to say nothing of those used in 
England, France, Germany, Italy and Russia, the more 
we are apt to be convinced that the study of history, in 
so far as it concerns school children at least, is not a 
study of what happened in the past, but of what some- 



176 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

man (or group of men) believes to have happened. In- 
deed, if we can follow the intricacies of the expression, 
school-book history is not frequently largely built 
upon the author's idea of what he believes the children 
of his nation ought to be taught to believe, rather than 
upon any idea of a statement of causes and events that 
would meet common acceptance from all who might be 
more or less concerned. 

These two difficulties, the first resulting in crowding 
our school text books and our school courses with more 
historical situations than any child can possibly be ex- 
pected to become reasonably acquainted with and the 
second resulting in teaching that kind of history in which 
the author is personally interested, has brought our school 
work in history to a very difficult pass. 

There is still some comfort, however, in finding that 
practically all teachers of history agree in believing 
that the final result of a child's instruction in history 
should be a better understanding of the present. The 
difficulty remains in a selection of any reasonable number 
of past events that our modern American historians can 
agree upon as pertinent today. 

The extreme point of view as illustrated by some spe- 
cialists in history might be summed up as follows: 

"One can never be certain what knowledge of the past 
will be pertinent in helping us to solve present problems. The 
knowledge that might have served us in 1921 may not be at 
all the knowledge that will serve us in 1925. Therefore the 
only safe course is to teach a more or less complete history 
of the world to all." 

As a result of this point of view our school history texts 
have grown from two hundred to five hundred pages 
and the end is not yet. A generation ago our American 



INTRODUCTORY SOCIAL SCIENCE 177 

school texts began with the periods of exploration and 
discovery, took up the period of colonization, passed on 
to the Revolution and hurried to the Civil War. From 
a child's viewpoint, it was a military history almost ex- 
clusively. The people of America seemed to us to be 
forever fighting and so nothing aside from generals, 
campaigns and battles seemed to us as pupils greatly 
worth while. Recognition of the fact that the schools 
were teaching almost exclusively a military history of 
America and of the United States seemed finally to 
have been the cause of the inclusion of other points of 
view in history texts — so without omitting much that 
had been taught, there were added here and there bits 
of political, industrial and even economic history, that 
seemed to demand attention. Moreover, a generation ago 
we were far more separated from Europe than we are to- 
day and our children, except in the advanced grades, 
were required to study little of what had happened or 
was happening in Europe except as in advanced and 
specialized courses they may have studied the History 
of England or of some continental nation. Of course 
in the colleges we studied Greek History and Roman 
History for culture, but rarely below the college except 
in the higher high school years of the "Classical Course." 

Today we find Ancient History required in many 
pre-grammar grades and a history of American Begin- 
nings in Europe added to American History in the 
elementary school, while more and more space in our 
school texts is being added to cover the development 
of American and related European political govern- 
ment, American and related European industrial organ- 
ization, American agricultural extension, etc., etc. 

At this point let us for the time leave our discussion 
of American school book history suspended, if you please^ 



178 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

in mid-air in order to consider other related junior high 
school requrements that may affect our final judgment. 
Yet as we leave this subject for the moment, let us carry 
with us the conviction that in this current year we could 
easily find grounds for teaching in our junior high school 
an Industrial American History, a Political American 
History, an Economic American History and even a 
History of American Business Organization that might 
possibly find at least as much present day justifica- 
tion and so, of necessity, for each as many added pages 
of school-book space, as were once studied by our fathers 
in their American military history. 



Geography 

Fortunately for our youngsters, the study of geography 
does not seem to have extended itself to the same degree 
that the study of history has done and yet even here the 
extension has been enormous. It was one thing to have 
studied American geography when all that one was re- 
quired to know of the land west of the Mississippi was 
that there were prairies, plains, a mountain range, a 
desert and some mountains on the Pacific coast. It is 
quite another thing to study this same region in the 
geography of today that tells of states, cities, industries 
and occupations west of the Mississippi that are quite 
as important to an understanding of American geogra- 
phy as much or all of what our fathers studied of the 
Eastern states. More and more the waste places are 
"being made fertile and with every extension of civiliza- 
tion our study of geography must needs advance both 
in quantity and in quality as well. 

Once we might, for example, study a river by knowing 
where it rose, in a general way the direction in which it 



INTRODUCTORY SOCIAL SCIENCE 179 

flowed and into what body of salt water it finally emp- 
tied. Today we must know that same river as described 
by the character of its current, its seasonal volume, its 
usefulness to commerce, its availability for water power 
not for saw mills merely, but for power plants to en- 
ergize scores of important industries — in short, the en- 
ergy which the river furnishes to the various towns and 
cities that it passes. Then, too, the river may have its 
use for irrigation, actual or projected, to say nothing of 
its effect upon the health of the thousands of communi- 
ties it passes by and its employment as in Europe for 
many other municipal uses. So much has our geography 
of rivers grown. 

In much the same way a city that might once have 
been characterized by a single predominant industry, as 
we may have studied it — Philadelphia, carpets — Chi- 
cago, meat packing — New Orleans, sugar — may now be 
equally important for a dozen or more other industries 
that have grown up in recent years. Without exaggera- 
tion we may, when we consider the extension of the study 
of geography today as compared with the geography 
our fathers studied, say that even the requirements in 
geography have increased a thousand per cent. Here too 
we meet with subdivisions that our fathers as school 
children rarely considered. Today we have not merely 
a greatly extended political geography and a much more 
scientific physical geography, but an almost wholly new 
commercial, industrial and even economic geography to 
be considered as well. 

More and more the conviction has been growing along 
with the growth of the school history and school geog- 
raphy that for the sake of our children "something 
must be done about it," but we have been content for the 
most part to sit on the side lines and watch the struggle 



180 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

for school recognition that these subjects were carrying 
on with other studies in our junior high school program. 



Civics 

Added to our greatly increased requirements in history 
and geography, a third related subject has managed to 
force its way into our elementary and secondary pro- 
gram of studies. Once a part of history, our new subject, 
Civics, has of later years been claiming more and more 
attention as a subject of study itself. So we have in 
many elementary and high schools today a course (or 
courses) in Civics with its own separate requirements, 
its own sequential graded outline and its own increas- 
ingly divergent point of view. How dull, dry and un- 
motivated school-book civics of the past once was, many 
of us can testify from experience. The three branches 
of our government — legislative, judicial and executive 
— often had the same degree of interest for us chil- 
dren as would three great roots of an overturned stump 
wasting away from dry rot. Indeed in our lower ele- 
mentary grades where this new subject has been intro- 
duced in many school systems, the natural interest of 
a sixth-year school child in the theory or practice of civil 
government is practically non-existent. Yet because 
the authorities feel it to be none the less something that 
our children really need to know, we are insisting that it 
be added even to the elementary program of studies. 

Not so, however, our newest accession to the social 
science group — Community Civics — which is bound to 
come into greater and greater prominence as its possi- 
bilities for good are established in the many school 
systems where it has already been introduced. 

The possibilities of making more appreciative Amer- 



INTRODUCTORY SOCIAL SCIENCE 181 

ican citizens are already being worked out in practice. 
The proponents of this newest course are asking us — 
"Is it not possible that we have been so in the habit of 
taking the good things our local communities do for us, 
for granted, that we have become blind on one side and 
see only the less creditable things of which our city 
governments are sometimes guilty." 
j Community Civics has for one aim teaching us to 
appreciate the blessings we enjoy as the result of com- 
munity government. We accept too frequently without 
thought the protection of our lives and property. The 
police, the firemen, the health officers rarely receive 
their due because we cannot even imagine what life would 
be without them. We turn the faucet at our sink 
with never a thought of the tremendous obstacles that 
had to be overcome by community action to give us 
this one convenience. 

The plagues that once carried off millions have been 
almost wiped out, without our ever being conscious of the 
never-ending watchfulness of those who are protecting our 
community health. 

Hanging would be a pleasant death in contrast to the 
death many of our ultra-radicals would suffer if they 
themselves were simply exempted from the protection 
of the local government against which they rage. Indeed 
few of our anarchists would live to inveigh against the 
governments they scorn were it possible for them to ex- 
perience even for a fortnight entire freedom from the 
protection which civil government throws around them 
through their every living moment. 

There will be a place in our junior high school pro- 
gram of studies for Community Civics as the study of 
what we owe in appreciation to those who have managed 
our civic affairs far more creditably than most of us 
adults have realized. 



182 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

Social Science 

At this point some may be. led so far afield by possible 
false deductions from our earlier discussions as to won- 
der why aside from community civics we need to worry 
so much about our social studies at all. Let history, 
geography and civics fight it out, they say; the world 
will keep on moving and the schools will keep open 
whether we have one or all, or even none of these studies 
in our curriculum. But here is where so many fail 
to grasp the essential necessity of these same subjects 
that we have apparently attacked. 

In so far as our American school children fail to be 
educated in enough common history, geography and 
civics to get along with each other as adults, to that 
extent our whole national organization and national 
civilization is weakened or imperilled. The time was, 
in the development of the human race, when every 
stranger was an enemy and the little tribe or clan was 
unceasingly at war with its strange neighbors across the 
lake, the river or the divide. To no markedly less 
extent we civilized nations of today are still ready to 
fight the stranger, but with this great difference, that 
there are fewer of us strangers to each other with 
each succeeding century. If we hundred million souls 
in the United States of America can live together in more 
or less peace and harmony among ourselves, it is largely 
because we have a common body of knowledge, a common 
fund of accepted tradition, a common faith in our fu- 
ture as an outgrowth of our past. In so far as we locally 
quarrel among ourselves, it is largely because we do not 
yet fully understand each other, because on one or both 
sides there is ignorance of the history, geography and 
civics in which the other side believes. 



INTRODUCTORY SOCIAL SCIENCE 183 

If we are to have a United States of America free 
from civil strife and civil war, we must have our children 
trained from their earliest adolescent school days in that 
body of social knowledge that will best enable them to 
live together as adults in sympathy, harmony and friend- 
ship. And equally we must have as teachers of these 
subjects men and women who are teaching what they be- 
lieve in their very souls as necessary and undebatable. 
There is no possibility of our children learning from 
a contentious quarreler how to get along with one's 
neighbors, unless by very contrast the children are led 
to seek the better path. Neither are we as yet com- 
pelled to open in our junior high schools laboratories for 
the testing of new social theories upon confessedly 
debatable topics. Not for a moment that all this test- 
ing and trying is not vitally important to our national 
and world progress, but rather that in our junior high 
schools we are scarcely warranted in experimenting with 
our children's happiness to such an extent as this may 
entail. If, however, we can first teach our children the 
art and the science of "getting along with each other," 
we shall have less reason to fear that they will ever fly, 
may present itself when they have grown up. 

So, for our junior high school we propose a new study 
/"at each other's throat to settle some new problem that 
or some older studies revamped — not history, not geog- 
raphy, not civics — but so much of each of these sub- 
jects as will best fit our children to get along with each 
other when they become in time the men and women of 
their generation. Call this, if you please, Introductory 
Social Science, when it is taught in the junior high 
school, but let it be understood that it means in homely 
language, "The art and the science of getting along with 
each other," whether "each other" includes one city, state 
and nation, or extends to distant shores. 



184 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

With this as a criterion much of the over-burdened 
courses in the older social subjects will be cut down to 
something nearer the possibility of reasonable achieve- 
ment. What do we need to know about the explorers and 
discoverers to get along better with our neighbors of 
today? Assuredly something, but possibly not all that 
our children have been asked to learn. What do we 
need to know about the war of the Revolution? Per- 
haps less about the campaigns and generals and more 
about the political, civic and industrial situation of that 
time. What do w^e need to know about the Mexican war? 
Assuredly much more of some things that v our histories 
have been willing to tell. What do we need to know 
about the campaigns of the Civil War? Just so much 
as will enable us to live in greater sympathy, added 
harmony and more lasting friendship with the men and 
women whose fathers fought ours over half a century ago. 

If New Hampshire and New Mexico, different as they 
are in location, climate, soil and industries, still feel 
themselves brothers in a great national family, it is in 
part because in each state the children in the schools and 
those who were once children in school have studied in 
their geographies the climate, the soil, the industrial con- 
ditions, that each must contend with, so that the news 
from one state reaching the other enables each in turn 
at once to put himself in the other fellow's place and to 
experience in sympathetic imagination the same feelings, 
the same emotions that the one affected really experi- 
ences. So it is, in countless ways, that geography as 
a study of how our neighbors live, makes not only our 
world larger but our hearts as well. 

Finally, Civics as a study of how people get along 
together under a common government in smaller or 
larger communities must be included in any such course 



INTRODUCTORY SOCIAL SCIENCE 185 

in Social Science as we would plan. Even as we study 
this chapter, courses in municipal cooperative enterprise 
— Community Civics — are rising into national prom- 
inence as worthy subjects for school study. One pur- 
pose of many such a course is to unify and solidify the 
school children of the community by educating them 
upon matters of their common interest, showing them to 
what a tremendous degree they are co-partners in the 
huge business of living together in peace and comfort. 

As in our newer junior high school mathematics, we 
no longer leave for possible college instruction simple 
mathematical conceptions that may be appreciated and 
employed now, even though these conceptions were once 
classed solely as a part of mathematical knowledge 
that even many college students did not attempt to study, 
so in our newer social science we shall choose from the 
higher fields of civil government, economics and finance 
such simple conceptions as are in themselves signifi- 
cant and within our junior high school children's mental 
reach. 

In every case our basis for selecting one fact and 
passing over another, for studying one movement and 
barely mentioning another will be the value of the fact 
or the movement as an aid to our present problem of 
"getting along with each other." 

The specialist in history, geography or civics will 
still have his university courses into which he may delve 
for his own personal satisfaction, or for the better ulti- 
mate guidance of us alL^Fhe school boy, however, will 
not be asked to study history, geography or civics as 
the specialist, but rather as the man on the street who 
wishes to live in peace and harmony with his neighbors 
across the street, across the divide, across the ocean. 



186 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 



QUESTIONS 

1. In what ways does the Geography which I studied differ 

from that which I may be called upon to teach today? 

2. What have our writers of American history text-books been 

conspicuously unable to decide upon? 

3. What type of history has been predominant in our Amer- 

ican text-books? 

4. What concrete and immediate value may a study of Com- 

munity Civics have for any junior high school pupils? 

5. What basis of selection of facts and movements to be studied 

(and to be omitted) do I propose? 

6. What arguments can I advance for this basis? 

7. Taking a modern text book of history proposed for use in 

the seventh, eighth, or ninth school year, can I classify, 
on the basis I selected, its teachings as pertinent or in- 
significant for the following periods: 

(a) Exploration and discovery? 

(b) Colonial wars? 

(c) The War for Independence? 

(d) Framing our constitution, etc., etc? 

8. What present-day problems can I name which may be better 

settled if our study of history — geography — civics — 
is given a new purpose? 



CHAPTER XI 

TEACHING THE APPRECIATION OF ART IN 
THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 

If by art. in the junior high school, we understand 
not simply Drawing and Design, but the art and prac- 
tice of Music as well, we may group them in a single 
chapter for purposes of discussion. 

In the first place, let us admit that not one in ten 
thousand, or possibly not in one hundred thousand, of 
our pupils will ever become an "artist" in the narrower 
sense in which that word may be used. Such students 
as may show unusual talent or promise of superior 
achievement in these lines of endeavor must be expected 
to get even their earliest professional training elsewhere. 
However, we may be within the probabilities if we main- 
tain that at least one in ten of our students may be 
taught to enjoy and appreciate the art of others and so 
to enrich and to beautify his own life, after school 
instruction is a thing of the past. 

To be sure some form of drawing as a convenient means 
of communication or record may be used by almost any 
boy after his leaving us, but this is not an Art, nor any- 
thing approaching art as we are using this word. If our 
guide is to be the selection of "the things that our junior 
high school boys will do anyway," we may be fairly 
safe in leaving the idea of making our pupils "artists" 
as one that may be eliminated at the start from the aims 
of our junior high school curriculum. 

187 



188 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

The difficulty in this elimination is, however, very 
real. In most of our courses of study, whether for 
state or city adoption, the educational authorities, feeling 
their own shortcomings in the field of art, have called 
in those who really were, or who aspired to become, 
artists in the higher meaning of that term. As a result, 
our courses have been too frequently planned by those 
who outlined work which they as mature artists be- 
lieved either had been, or might have been, directly help- 
ful to them as children in school. So, while all of the 
proposed course may seem natural, interesting and un- 
speakably simple to the artist who plans it, the chances 
are not small that much, if not all, of this course will 
seem to the average youngster that approaches it un- 
natural, uninteresting and unspeakably difficult. 

Though it may be that some artists, recognizing the 
true situation, have attempted to plan courses - in the 
appreciation of art for adolescents, the final resulting 
course has not, after all, been greatly modified. Even 
the appreciation of art as seen by an artist is a highly 
technical and specialized ability, which requires techni- 
cal and specialized training and so an approach to Art 
Appreciation is often planned that might approximate 
in difficulty trying to teach a two year old to talk by 
instructing him in the rules of English grammar. 

If our pupils are to learn to appreciate and so to en- 
joy the beautiful paintings, the beautiful statues, the 
beautiful buildings that they may later have the op- 
portunity of seeing, or to enjoy the beautiful music 
that they may later have the opportunity of hearing, 
some of us may feel that they should be led toward 
this enjoyment by being given the opportunity to de- 
velop it in the presence of the things they later may be 
led to love. Indeed some may believe that children can 



TEACHING THE APPRECIATION OF ART 189 

gain an appreciation of the beautiful in art by being 
brought constantly in contact with it, in much the same 
way as a child learns to speak by constantly hearing 
his parents' and playmates' conversation. 

Thorndike in his Educational Psychology has em- 
phasized the value for citizenship, of training our chil- 
dren in what he calls the unselfish pleasures of life. 
Chief among these unselfish pleasures comes the en- 
joyment of great works of art. When one enjoys a 
dish of well-prepared food he eats it and destroys its 
possibility of furnishing enjoyment for others, but when 
one enjoys a great painting his own enjoyment is in- 
creased rather than diminished by knowing that per- 
haps a million other people have feasted their eyes 
as he is feasting his. And so indeed a miracle appears, 
for each observer takes away in turn something he did 
not have before, yet leaves the source of his new treasure 
wholly undiminished. Yes, even more, for the real 
lover of art has his own pleasure increased almost directly 
in proportion to the number who enjoy the master- 
piece with him. So it is that our real art lovers who have 
the means to gratify their love of beauty no longer 
lock up their treasures in their private homes, but in the 
public museums, or in other suitable places, permit the 
one who wills to come and share the emotions that the 
old master can call forth. Only the man or woman of 
warped spirit, or without real art appreciation in his 
being, locks up the masterpiece he may be able to secure, 
and if he does this we may be sure that his interest in 
the treasure is almost wholly in the advertising power 
that comes to him as its owner, and that a bent pin, if 
similarly priced and equally well known, would be as 
much appreciated. 

So since the art treasures of the world are being more 



190 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

and more brought within the possibility of enjoyment 
by one and all, the probabilities are that more and more 
of our pupils, as one of "the things they will do anyway" 
will see treasures of art which may add greatly to their 
happiness as men and women if only they themselves 
have developed the capacity to enjoy them. 

Not so very different are the possibilities in music, 
though necessarily more limited. Those that can both 
see and hear the masters of the human voice, or of the 
violin, or of the great stringed orchestra, are a thousand 
times the numbers of a century ago. Where once these 
living masters delighted only the royal courts, today 
the crowded theatres, or opera houses, permit thousands 
upon thousands to hear each year the master of his ,-irt. 
And indeed, however much we may shock the refinements 
of the over sensitive, we must include too the possibility 
of those mechanical devices that reproduce to a certain 
extent the human voice or human touch. However 
much the connoisseur may sneer at "canned music" 
many of us are fortunately still not upon so lofty 
a plane that we cannot enjoy Caruso upon the phono- 
graph or Paderewski upon the player piano. Much less 
for the while are our junior high school pupils beyond 
the possibilities of such enjoyment. 

From such an introduction as we have made together, 
it may be possible for us to plan our junior high school 
work in art to give to each young student in our class 
some inkling at least of the pleasures of art apprecia- 
tion and to start him upon the road to the enjoyment 
of the unselfish pleasures he may both get and share. 

Pictorial Art 
In order that we may not confuse the rudimentary 



TEACHING THE APPRECIATION OF ART 191 

instruction in perspective that may be on our printed 
course of study with the larger possibilities of art ap- 
preciation, would it not be well for at least one year 
of our three to put no pencil to paper save as the inner 
impulse urged us to draw? 

With different schools a different year may be se- 
lected, but all in all, the first junior high school year 
seems the best to those that have been experimenting 
with this work. 

To be sure, if the higher schools would grant credit 
for a year of art appreciation, we might prefer to put 
this field work later in our course, possibly in the ninth 
school, or third junior high school year, but because 
there is as yet no such opportunity for us, we may only 
select a year that belongs to us alone. Therefore we are 
almost compelled to select for the time being our first 
junior high school year unless we are willing to handicap 
our pupils by giving them work in Art which, while it 
may be better in the highest sense, is not so helpful in 
meeting the requirements that lie just ahead. 

For the first junior high school year then we propose 
to have no drawing in the class room, but to use our 
drawing period for actually seeing (even if not at first 
enjoying) the great works of art that may be brought 
to us in pictures if we indeed cannot always go to them. 

At S peyer School, with the treasures of a great city 
within reach, our two successive periods of drawing 
are used for Art Appreciation in the field. Great paint- 
ings may be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; 
classic statues may be seen there too. The treasures of 
the goldsmith, the potter and the weaver may also 
be used in the attempt to awaken appreciation. Always 
the instructor leads the way. No trip is taken on im- 
pulse or without due preparation. The period of prep- 



192 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

aration may be taken occasionally from time in English 
composition, but more often on the ground itself to dis- 
cuss quite carefully what is to be seen and why. In rainy 
or inclement weather, and it takes a real storm indeed 
to keep our boys at home, the school stereopticon with 
slides loaned by the Museum, or by the State Depart- 
ment of Visual Instruction, is used to bring to the school 
objects of art that may have value for our work. Not 
only in the Museum which is our chief treasure trove, but 
in the historic mansions, now city owned, the children 
may see the work of Sheraton or Heppelwhite in fur- 
niture and gain perhaps some suggestion of the possibili- 
ties of art enjoyment even in furnishing and decorat- 
ing one's simple home. 

Even from the street one may see beautiful buildings, 
planned by great artist-architects, and so learn to recog- 
nize that even a building may be a thing of beauty and 
so become a joy forever to the one whose eyes can see 
the harmony it portrays. 

At this point there may be some who will insist that 
we can teach beauty only by teaching ugliness as well 
and to a certain extent this may be true. However, with 
our junior high school pupils there need be little fear 
that they will reach any such high point of art appreci- 
ation as will make them so appreciative of the enduring 
things of art as to be caused unhappiness and suffering 
by the less beautiful or even the ugly things they may 
be forced to see. And yet to the extent to which all our 
adolescent boys and girls are led to avoid the ugly, or 
even to prefer the beautiful, we have added something 
not only to their lives, but to the beauty of America 
itself a generation hence. 

At the end of our first year, convention and the de- 
mands of the higher schools may cause us to return to 



TEACHING THE APPRECIATION OF ART 193 

the routine lessons with pencil, crayon, or brush, but 
the impulse to prefer the beautiful and an awakening 
appreciation of beauty may make this routine work 
far more interesting and more successful than otherwise 
would have been possible. 

For all this work it may be seen a teacher with a 
highly specialized ability is required. If we were free 
to choose such a teacher from an open field, let us con- 
fess we would go slow in engaging an ''artist" or even an 
aspirant to such distinction, but would prefer to select 
one who possessed herself what we wish our pupils to 
secure, the enjoyment and appreciation of the art of 
others. Without being at all humorous we might propose 
some psychological tests that would help us to discover 
the teacher that we need. Find the individual that 
would prefer visiting the Museum of Art to attending 
some social function, whose own dress and belongings 
show uniformly good taste, who does not gush in the 
presence of a masterpiece, but is silent, trying if at all, 
still in vain to find words to express, or to explain, the 
satisfaction, she secures. Such a one, though she never 
yet had touched crayon to paper, or brush to canvas, 
might still give promise of being the one of most value 
to us in this new line of work. 

Similarly in Music, the man or woman who will deny 
himself the food he needs to save up money to hear a 
great virtuoso or soloist, gives promise of being better 
able to help us in teaching the appreciation of good mu- 
sic, vocal or instrumental, than the one who sang with his 
college glee club or gives lessons upon the piano. 

Of course when one is entering a new field and this 
matter of teaching Appreciation is a new field, although 
for years it may have appeared in various printed courses 
of study, it is well to avoid being too positive in matters 
^of this kind and yet it may do us no harm to recognize 



194 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

that possibly some present teacher of Latin, mathematics, 
or history may be the one best fitted to conduct these 
appreciation courses in our junior high school. 



APPRECIATION IN MUSIC 

As field work in Art Appreciation replaces for one year 
the usual class room instruction, so in Music for one-third 
at least of our junior high school course, Music Appre- 
ciation replaces the conventional drill in sight reading 
and part singing, but with one difference. Our work 
in the appreciation of good music is and must be carried 
along with actual class room work, taking a part of each 
day's, week's, or month's work as the work to be studied 
best adapts itself. But certainly some part of every fort- 
night at most should be devoted to Music Appreciation. 

It may not be time misspent to consider in a little 
more concrete way than earlier in our chapter, some of 
the actual selections that might be used. 

In the first place since most of our pupils cannot at- 
tend grand opera, we must bring the opera into the mu- 
sic room in story and on phonograph records, helping 
occasionally, perhaps with the piano, to isolate" or em- 
phasize the finer points of theme or melody. 

For our year's work we may rest content if our pupils 
are able to tell the stories and recognize the principal or 
best known orchestral or vocal selections of each of eight 
or ten operas, such as Carmen, Lucia di Lammermoor, 
Martha, Faust, II Trovatore, Aida, Tannhauser, Lo- 
hengrin, La Boheme, Pagliacci. In addition, we might 
require the recognition of one or more selections from 
operas that might not be known in their entirety, as the 
Overture from William Tell, the Overture from Fra 
Diavolo, the Waltz Song from Romeo and Juliet, the 



TEACHING THE APPRECIATION OF ART 195 

Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana, the Coronation 
March from The Prophet, the Duke's Song from Rigo- 
letto, the prize song from The Meistersinger and possibly 
selected motifs from The Ring of the Niebelung. Finally, 
we might make a list of songs or selections "that every 
one should know" and use the phonograph or piano to 
bring the pupils and the music together. Such a list 
might resemble to some extent, the Music Memory List 
used in the New York City schools : 

■ 

Musetta's Song — La Boheme Puccini 

Caro Nome — Rigoletto Verdi 

My Heart at Thy Sweet Voice — 

Samson and Delilah Saint Saens 

Trio — Prison Scene — Faust Gounod 

Barcarolle — Tales of Hoffman Offenbach 

Intermezzo — Cavalleria Rusticana . . Mascagni 

Meditation — Thais Massenet 

Triumphal March — Aida Verdi 

Dagger Dance — Natoma Herbert — 

Anvil Chorus — II Trovatore Verdi 

Miserere — II Trovatore Verdi 

Toreador Song — Carmen Bizet 

Soldiers" Chorus — Faust Gounod 

Minuet — Don Giovanni Mozart 

Sextet — Lucia Donizetti 

Quartet — Rigoletto Verdi 

Overture — William Tell Rossini 

Lift Thine Eyes — Elijah Mendelssohn 

With Verdure Clad — Creation Haydn 

And the Glory of the Lord — Messiah Handel 

Ave Maria Bach-Gounod 

Hallelujah Chorus — Messiah Handel 

Andante — Fifth Symphony Beethoven 

Theme — New World Symphony Dvorak 

Andante — Surprise Symphony Haydn 

First Movement — "Unfinished Sym- 
phony" Schubert 

Spring Song Mendelssohn 

. 



196 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

Salut D'Amour Elgar 

To a Wild Rose MacDowell 

Narcissus Nevin 

Humoresque Dvorak 

Morning 1 

Anitra's Dance I p • 

In the Hall of the Mountain King. . wieK 

Ase's Death J 

Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 Liszt 

Wedding March Mendelssohn 

March of the Toys Herbert 

Nocturne in E Flat Chopin 

Minuet in A. Boccherini 

Marche Militaire Schubert 

Dream of Love Liszt 

Chant Sans Paroles Tschaikowsky 

Minute Waltz Chopin 

Largo Handel 

Cavatina .' Raff 

Elegie Massenet 



National Songs 

Hail Columbia American Patriotic Song 

Men of Harlech Welsh Patriotic Song 

Rule Britannia English Patriotic Song 

La Marseillaise French Patriotic Song 

La Brabanconne Belgian Patriotic Song -*" 

Garibaldi Hymn Italian Patriotic Song 



American Songs 

From the Land of the Sky Blue 

Water Cadman 

The Year's at the Spring Beach 

Mighty Lak a Rose Nevin 

O Promise Me DeKoven 

Carry Me Back to Old Virginny Bland 

Come Where My Love Lies 



TEACHING THE APPRECIATION OF ART 197 

Dreaming Foster 

Swing Low Sweet Chariot Negro Spiritual 

Flow Gently Sweet Afton Spilman 

Deep River Negro Spiritual 

Miscellaneous Songs 

Sweet and Low Barnby 

The Lost Chord Sullivan 

Love's Old Sweet Song Molloy 

Hark! Hark! The Lark Schubert 

Who is Sylvia Schubert 

Home Sweet Home Bishop 



Our method of work would be to tell the story and 
play the records of each of the selections, not once but 
over and over again on different days, until the pupils 
became able to recognize each selection, tell the com- 
poser, the opera and the setting of the selection itself. 

Securing the records may not always be a simple mat- 
ter. Of course the school should own its records just as 
much as it should own its music books and its piano, but 
school boards are apt to regard the phonograph records 
still as "fads and frills" and force us to depend upon the 
good will of our pupils' parents to loan us the records 
for any one performance and such parents are not few. 
Many who may otherwise hesitate to loan records will 
do so if a deposit in full is left to guard against a pos- 
sible injury to any record, while in some cities and towns 
the local agent will bring the records and play them 
himself for the sake of the advertising he gets from the 
performance. 

After all, not a great variety of records but great 
versatility on the part of the teacher is what is most 
needed. It may be possible for a skillful teacher to 
build the entire story of II Trovatore around two or three 



198 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

songs and to interest all in the music and the story of 
Aida by using only the triumphal march and the final 
duet. Other things being equal, the more good records 
that can be supplied for any opera, the better, but the 
finest collection that can be secured anywhere, will not 
replace the teacher's work, if the teacher himself really 
appreciates good music. 

QUESTIONS 

1. Can the junior high school attempt to train artists? On 

what do we base our reply? 

2. Why, as a rule, cannot an artist himself plan a good course 

for adolescents? 

3. What are some of the unselfish pleasures of life and why 

are they so called? 

4. What is the modern tendency in the ownership of master- 

pieces of art and how does this affect our junior high 
school work? 

5. What opportunities does my own neighborhood offer for 

teaching the Appreciation of Art ? 

6. What teaching of appreciation may be independent of my 

own locality? 

7. What should be the basic requirement for a teacher of Art 

Appreciation? 






CHAPTER XII 

PHYSICAL TRAINING, BODILY HEALTH AND 
CHARACTER BUILDING 

One often hears in any discussion of the place of 
Physical Training in our junior high schools that the 
Great War showed the people of America the need of 
giving more attention in school to the physical condition 
of school children. Of the young men included in the 
selective draft an astonishingly large percentage proved 
"physically unfit" to a greater or lesser degree — rang- 
ing from flat foot or defective teeth to more serious 
systemic disorders that made them wholly unavailable 
for the rigors of military service and to a less extent for 
the struggle for existence in any form of useful endeavor. 

To how great a degree these physical defects could 
have been remedied or cured in school by corrective ex- 
ercises and instruction in habits of hygienic living is still 
an open question. There is, however, grave doubt in the 
minds of most students of education as to the possibility 
of -making any marked progress toward the physical per- 
fection of school children until there occurs something 
approaching a right about face on the part of college 
professors, superintendents of schools and boards of 
education everywhere. 

As we have often acknowledged, though sometimes 
grudgingly, the question of college entrance require- 
ments affects to a very marked degree even ele- 
mentary school instruction. According to our American 

199 



200 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

ideals of equality of opportunity, we are more or less 
obliged to consider every school child a potential uni- 
versity student and in our school work we must be very 
careful to close no doors of educational advancement to 
any child even when we know that possibly not more 
than one in ten thousand will follow the path of school 
and college instruction to its completion. Therefore un- 
til the colleges give decidedly more credit, in their sixteen 
or so "counts" or "credits" for admission, to the healthy, 
well-developed youth as contrasted with the sickly and 
under-nourished one, it is useless to expect the high school 
to be as much concerned about its pupils' physical condi- 
tion as it is with "conditions" in mathematics, English, 
science or history. 

Were the colleges to give four entrance credits to a 
course in physical training and hygienic living that 
would be in part measured by the applicant's own bodily 
condition at entrance, what a wonderful change we should 
experience in our own attitude toward our pupils' physi- 
cal welfare. Not that we would ever bar from edu- 
cational advancement those whose misfortune it was to 
be crippled for we are not discussing actual cripples, but 
that evidence of vigorous health would be accepted as at 
least some prophecy of the pupil's fitness to use his ad- 
vanced training in a sane and healthy way for the bene- 
fit of the nation that helped to educate him. Would 
it not be interesting to note the new-born solicitude of 
the examiner in many worth-while things that are now 
overlooked and would it not be an altogether worthy 
and commendable solicitude? 

As yet to be very frank with ourselves how many of us, 
teachers in elementary and high schools, are ourselves 
sufficiently fit to pass a rigid examination for military 
service? How many of us are sufficiently acquainted with 



PHYSICAL TRAINING, CHARACTER BUILDING 201 

the scientific regimen of health culture to be able to give 
our pupils daily training in habits that will correct their 
individual tendencies toward physical unfitness in so 
great a variety of forms? It is hardly to be expected 
that men and women who have passed through high 
school and training school or college practically un- 
touched by any worth-while instruction in hygienic liv- 
ing, can themselves give instruction from the depth of 
their ignorance to children who need the combined atten- 
tion of a dentist, of a physician and often of a trained 
nutrition worker. 

Yet may we not still further consider the situation? 
In recent years our school physicians and hygienists have 
worked out a series of symptoms or measurements to 
enable them very roughly to classify school children into 
four nutrition groups ranging from Nutrition 1, which 
stands for splendid bodily condition, down through Nu- 
trition 2, which stands for a less obviously healthy con- 
dition, to Nutrition 3, or defective nutrition, under- 
weight and a lack of necessary vitality, and still down to 
Nutrition 4, representing a condition bordering on in- 
validism and break-down. Depending upon the location 
of our schools and the racial stock of our school children 
the number of those below par physically is found to 
range from fifteen to thirty-five per cent of the total num- 
ber enrolled. In the various centers, intensive studies are 
being made to find the reasons for these "Nutrition Threes" 
and "Nutrition Fours" and so far as the results of these 
special studies are available they seem to show certain 
definite causes. Chief among these causes are defective 
teeth, poorly selected food (often also poorly prepared), 
poor conditions for sleeping (including a lack of sufficient 
sleep) , a weakened or contaminated hereditary stock, and 
finally a general neglect or ignorance (in the pupils* 
homes) of the fundamentals of hygienic living. 



202 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

If these be the causes, can any reasonable human being 
be found who will expect our schools or our school 
teachers of physical training, educated as they have been, 
to remove in forty-five minutes or less a day of physi- 
cal training those causes that have no origin in school 
work or school attendance, especially when each teacher 
meets on the average thirty-five pupils at once and 
when the physical training time is so often allotted as 
play time or recess time, purely for the mental relaxation 
and physical exercise. 

The very diagnosis of a school child's bodily condition 
is a matter demanding the attention of a trained physi- 
cian; the teeth must be taken care of by a dentist; a 
specialist in nutrition should prescribe the diet and its 
preparation; a trained social worker should carry con- 
viction to the pupil's parents that the child's physical 
condition needs greatly increased care and attention. In 
almost every school in America there is an unanswered 
demand for the professional care of the children's health 
by people who are specialists in treating each one of 
the major causes of actual or potential malnutrition and 
ill health. 

Indeed when all is said regarding the unreasonableness 
of expecting our teachers of language or of mathematics 
to correct their pupils' defective bodily conditions, one 
is apt to find it almost equally unreasonable to expect 
even the schools with specialists in physical training to 
assign this entire burden to such a teacher. As a rule, 
the teacher of physical training finds a prescribed course 
in games, gymnastics, setting up drills, apparatus work, 
etc., etc., that more than takes up all the school time 
assigned to his subject, while in after school hours the 
teacher of physical training is often expected to coach 
and frequently to manage the school athletic teams in 



PHYSICAL TRAINING, CHARACTER BUILDING 203 

their manifold voluntary activities. How then can he be 
expected, in addition to all this, even after the skilled 
physician has diagnosed each child's physical condition, 
to secure the necessary dental treatment or instruct 
the pupils', mothers in the purchase and preparation of 
food? 

Having thus far succeeded in convincing ourselves that 
it is not only unreasonable, but impossible, for any 
one to expect the teachers of a junior high school, even 
the teachers of physical training, to safeguard, or to rem- 
edy, their pupils' general bodily condition, let us now 
proceed to find ways and means of accomplishing the 
impossible. If in the major subjects of the school 
curriculum we are once more pioneers in finding new 
and better ways of doing things that convention had 
decreed were unchangeable, may we not here also lead 
the way toward remedying conditions that appear ir- 
remediable. 

In the first place, if we must assign to the subject 
of physical training the instruction each pupil needs 
in caring for his or her own body, then we must all edu- 
cate ourselves sufficiently to become teachers of physi- 
cal training to some extent at least, no matter what be 
the specialty for which the school board may employ us. 
Whatever be our specialty we all keep the roll books, 
mark the pupils' attendance and receive and dismiss 
our one "official class." Those in our official class are 
the children whose health and habits we may reasonably 
be expected to be best able to influence, for to these 
children's parents we report their children's school prog- 
ress on our report cards, from these parents we expect 
notes of excuse for absence, and when these parents call to 
make inquiry regarding their children's progress, we are, 
or should be, the first ones consulted. We can then, 



204 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

each of us, assume the obligation of finding out the 
physical condition of each of the children in our one 
"official class." Are they all "Nutrition Ones" and 
"Twos"? If they are, our duty is to keep them so. Are 
many "Threes" and "Fours"? We are then to leave no 
stone unturned to show them the path to health and 
vigor. If we have a school physician we must demand 
his diagnosis. If we have none, we may interest our 
own physician in voluntary service in this great cause. 
Failing in both, we must rely on our own common sense 
and powers of observation to make the first preliminary 
survey, and these measures need not be more than three 
as a general rule. (See pages 205, 206.) 

A tape measure and the grocer's scale will give us one 
rude measurement of malnutrition if a table of normal 
heights and weights be obtained from almost any board 
of health. Children need not strip for us to see collar 
bones that are well covered to show health, or that stick 
out to show some form of child starvation. The child's 
nervous condition, whether jumpy and irritable, or lazy 
and drowsy, may give us the third measure, all indi- 
cating conditions that need remedying and that usually 
can be remedied by our interest and help. 

Having made our first survey, no matter how accurate 
or how crude it may be, we can select our extreme cases as 
the ones demanding first attention and can send a per- 
sonal letter, or a printed form supplied by the school, to 
the parents of such of our children as we are convinced 
need immediate attention. In many cases this simple 
note advising the parent to consult a dentist, or a physi- 
cian, or a dietitian, will be all that is necessary to start 
the youngster upon his upward path. However, in many 
cases, a surprisingly large number too, we may expect 
rebuff or opposition from the parents (often supposedly 



PHYSICAL TRAINING, CHARACTER BUILDING 205 

educated parents) who resent any suggestion which they 
feel reflects upon their care of their own children. Not 
only will the ignorant parents write — as one did to a 
teacher who tried to get a certain very dirty child cleaned 
up — '"'Don't smell him. Learn him," — but the know- 



HEIGHT and WEIGHT TABLE for BOYS 



Height 


5 


6 


7 


8 


9 


10 


11 


12 


13 


14 


15 


16 


17 


18 


Inches 


Yrs. 


Yrs. 


Yrs. 


Yrs. 


Yrs. 


Yrs. 


Yrs. 


Yrs. 


Yrs. 


Yrs. 


Yrs. 


Yrs. 


Yrs. 


Yrs. 


39 


35 


36 


37 
























40 


37 


38 


39 
























41 


39 


40 


41 
























42 


41 


42 


43 


44 






















43 


43 


44 


45 


46 






















44 


45 


46 


46 


47 






















45 


47 


47 


48 


48 


49 




















46 


48 


49 


50 


50 


51 




















47 




51 


52 


52 


53 


54 


















48 




53 


54 


55 


oo 


56 


57 
















49 




55 


56 


57 


58 


58 


59 
















50 






58 
60 
62 


59 
61 
63 
66 
69 


60 
62 
64 
67 
70 
73 
77 


60 
63 
65 
68 
71 
74 
78 
81 
84 
87 
91 


61 
64 
67 
69 
72 
75 
79 
82 
85 
88 
92 
95 

mo 


62 
65 
68 
70 
73 
76 
SO 
83 
86 
89 
93 
97 
10?! 


71 
74 
77 
81 
84 
87 
90 
94 
99 
104 


78 
82 
85 
88 
92 
97 
102 
106 


86 
90 
94 
99 
104 
109 


91 

96 
101 
106 
111 


97 
102 
108 
113 




51 








52 








53 








54 










55 










56 












57 












58 














59 














60 














61 












110 


62 














116 


63 














105 


107 


109 


111 


114 


115 


117 


119 


64 
















113 


115 


117 


118 


119 


120 


122 


65 


















120 


m 


123 


124 


}-?5 


126 


66 


















Ifffi 


i?r 


127 


128 


129 


130 


67 


















130 
134 
138 


131 
135 
139 


132 
136 

140 


133 
137 
141 


134 
138 
143 


135 


68 


















139 


69 


















143 


70 




















142 
147 
152 
157 


144 
149 
154 
159 


145 
150 
155 
160 


146 
151 
156 
161 


147 


71 




















152 


72 




















157 


73 




















ifia 


74 




















162 


164 


165 


166 


167 


75 






















169 


170 


171 


172 


76 






















174 175 


176 


177 



Prepared by Dr. Thomas D. Wood. 



About What a BOY Should Gain Each Month 



Age 
5 to 8. 
8 to 12. 



Age 

6 oz. 12 to 16 16 oz. 

8 oz. 16 to 18 8 oz. 



1918, by Child Health Organisation 



206 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 



it-all parents will threaten as one did in my own work 
recently "to have the law on you" for daring to weigh 
and measure his child. Possibly it may be better to get 
each parent to sign in advance a note in which he ex- 
presses an interest in his child's physical condition and 



HEIGHT and WEIGHT TABLE for GIRLS 


Height 
Inches 


5 

Yrs. 


6 

Yrs. 


7 
Yrs. 


8 
Yrs. 


9 

Yrs. 


10 

Yrs. 


11 

Yrs. 


12 
Yrs. 


13 

Yrs. 


14 

Yrs. 


15 
Yrs. 


16 
Yrs. 


17 
Yrs. 


IS 
Yrs. 


39 
40 

41 
42 
43 
44 
45 
46 
47 
48 
49 
50 
51 
52 
53 
54 
55 
56 
57 
58 
59 
60 
61 
62 
63 
64 
65 
66 
67 
68 
69 
70 
71 
72 


34 
36 

38 
40 
42 
44 
46 
48 


35 
37 
39 
41 
42 
45 
47 
48 
49 
51 
53 


36 

38 
40 
42 
43 
45 
47 
49 
50 
52 
54 
56 
59 
62 


43 
44 
46 
48 
50 
51 
53 
55 
57 
60 
63 
66 
68 


49 
51 
52 
54 
56 
58 
61 
64 
67 
69 
72 
76 


53 
55 
57 
59 

62 
65 
68 
70 
73 
77 
81 
85 
89 


56 
58 
60 
63 
66 
68 
71 
74 
78 
82 
83 
90 
94 
99 
104 
109 


61 
64 

67 

69 

72 

75 

79 

83 

87 

91 

95 

101 

106 

111 

115 

117 

119 


70 
73 

76 

80 

84 

88 

93 

97 

102 

107 

112 

117 

119 

121 

124 

126 

129 


77 
81 
85 
89 
94 
99 
104 
109 
113 
118 
120 
122 
126 
128 
131 
134 
138 


86 
90 
95 
100 
106 
111 
115 
119 
122 
124 
127 
130 
133 
136 
140 
1^5 


91 
96 
102 
108 
113 
117 
120 
123 
126 
128 
132 
135 
138 
142 
147 


98 
104 
109 
114 
118 
121 
124 
127 
129 
133 
136 
139 
143 
148 


106 
111 
115 
119 
122 
125 
128 
130 
134 
137 
140 
144 
149 






















































































































































































































































Prep 


ired by Dr. Thomas 


D. Wood. 




About What a 


. GIRL Should Gain Each Month 




Age 
5 to s 


Ag 
. 6 oz. 14 to 
. 8 oz. 16 to 
. 12 oz. 


~16 


. 8 oz. 


8 to 
11 to 


11 


18 




14 








Try and do as 


much better than the average as you can 


\ 


Veights and measure 


3 should be taken without shoes and in only 
the usual indoor clothes. 



©, 1918, by Child Health Organization 



. 



PHYSICAL TRAINING, CHARACTER BUILDING 207 

asks the teacher's interest also. For this the school 
should supply an official form. 

For the parents who cannot, or will not, secure dental 
treatment for their children there seems nothing that can 
be done at present except to urge them to insist upon 
the frequent use of the tooth brush by their children. 
For the parents who will not have their children's ob- 
structions to good breathing (adenoids or enlarged ton- 
sils) removed we can do but little. And yet even in these 
cases if we can induce the parents to feed their children 
at timely intervals with plenty of plain food, well sup- 
plied with vitamines (fresh milk and fresh vegetables) 
we can make great headway against the children's pro- 
gressive deterioration. If to this we add repeated in- 
struction in the necessity for a well-ventilated sleeping 
room and ten or more hours of uninterrupted sleep, we 
can still feel that we have done our part toward making 
health conservation a real factor in junior high school 
instruction. 

Indeed if we are doing our full duty as teachers in this 
newer and most progressive type of school we can say — 
and indeed we must say — in answer to any questions 
as to what we teach, "I teach physical training (health 
conservation) and ..." whatever our second or 
special subject may be. 

The time for this work may not be scheduled on the 
daily program of the school, though it would be well 
if one stated period each week could be assigned to it, 
but for the most part it must be done in the twenty 
minutes or so before the morning session, or in a similar 
amount of time after school is dismissed. As a rule, 
this time is used for individual cases, checking up on 
the pupil's own reports on his health progress. For the 
preliminary health survey some schools declare a Health 



208 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

Day during the opening month of each semester and the 
entire day is spent in measuring the pupils 7 physical con- 
dition. For this day each teacher is supplied with a set 
of printed directions and each pupil with a record card 
showing the items to be checked up. In New York City 
the form on the following page is used; 

Note especially the directions to teachers in the upper 
right hand corner of the record card. 

In many communities the school nurse may be ex- 
pected to supply something approaching the professional 
examination of the school doctor, and to act as a con- 
necting link between the class room teacher and the 
specialist. Where this school nurse is on the school 
payroll and under the supervision of the principal a 
great deal of good can be accomplished by her, for she 
becomes the one charged especially with the conserva- 
tion of the children's health. Being always in attendance, 
at least during the forenoon, teachers may consult the 
nurse upon all matters regarding the children in their 
official classes. Afternoons the nurse may visit the par- 
ents of these children and explain the physical defects 
which need attention. 

Until the local physicians appreciate the value of these 
health surveys, opposition may be found in some cases 
to any physical examination of the children which they 
do not personally make. If they are made to under- 
stand in advance that the parents will be required to 
refer their children to their family physician for super- 
vision and prescription after the school diagnosis is com- 
pleted, practically all objections from this source can be 
obviated. 

It is not to be expected that each teacher will be able 
to* make a complete and correct physical survey of each 
pupil. For the most part, the value of such a card rec- 



PHYSICAL TRAINING, CHARACTER BUILDING 209 



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210 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

ord will be to "indicate suspicion" that the pupil has 
physical defects that need special attention. The use 
of the record is to direct the physician's attention 
immediately to possible defects and so enable him to 
survey of a school in one half or one quarter of the 
time that would be required if the physician had to make 
all the tests for each child, without the teacher's pre- 
liminary survey. 

When no school physician is employed, the record 
card with its checks under various headings may be in- 
terpreted as a notice to the child's parents, reading "You 
had better look into the matter of having your son's diet 
— eyes — teeth — tonsils, etc., etc., examined by a spe- 
cialist." 

One can readily see now, if not before, that individual 
examinations of each pupil's physical condition cannot 
be made solely by the teacher of physical training unless 
he is freed from all other work. Even were that done, 
it would take a semester for him to cover even a small 
school without taking his pupils from their recitations 
in other subjects and so interfering with the scholastic 
progress of the school. 

Having now and at some length discussed the reasons 
why the special teacher of physical training can not and 
should not be expected to be responsible for the physical 
condition of all of the pupils in his junior high school 
and having further agreed that all teachers should be ex- 
pected to be to no small degree fellow guardians of the 
pupils' bodily welfare, it remains for us to consider 
ways in which the special teacher of physical training 
may contribute in turn to the welfare and the progress 
of the pupil in the other subjects of the junior high school 
curriculum. 

First, on the purely technical side, in his gymnasium 



PHYSICAL TRAINING, CHARACTER BUILDING 211 

or out-of-door exercises, the teacher of physical train- 
ing may be reasonably expected to drill his pupils in cer- 
tain physical and mental characteristics that will man- 
ifest themselves in all the pupil's school behavior. It 
is reasonable to expect that he will teach his pupils how to 
stand, to sit and to walk in a healthful and pleasing 
manner. To do this he must, in such modified sequence 
as best fits the individual or the group, establish first 
the reasonableness and the possibility of such instructions 
as he intends to offer. Then he may by example and 
directions show how the actual positions are secured. 
Finally, he must appeal to the pupils in such a way as to 
induce each one to accept as his personal ideal and goal 
that reasonable degree of perfection that is called for. 
Added to, or accompanying all this, comes the drill, 
the setting-up exercises and, in some schools, the bell, 
the club and the bar or wand exercises that make for 
good posture and carriage. 

Second, the physical training instructor may be reason- 
ably expected to imbue all his pupils with a reasonable 
regard for and skill in — instant response to a command, 
a physical alertness, snap, style and control, so that each 
one knows what it is to be "on hair trigger," senses all 
alert, fully in command of himself and still ready to 
accept and carry out the right order when it comes. Our 
fathers and grandfathers, more used to firearms perhaps 
than we are, coined many terms that may be well ac- 
cepted by us in our physical training drills. Not only 
is the "hair trigger" alertness most desirable, but equally 
is guarding against "going off at half cock" or physical 
response before a command is completed. Not that we 
can expect one teacher of physical training to correct in 
his occasional drills all the lazy habits of a pupil's life 
time, but that we can expect him in the line of his work 



I 



212 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

to establish ideals of alertness and control that will en- 
dure far beyond his drill period. Indeed establishing 
ideals of bodily perfection under the control of an alert 
mind may well be one great part of the work in physical 
training and of possibly greater value than anything 
else in securing the hoped-for habits. 

As a third requirement comes training in fair play. 
Outside the gymnasium or the drill period, no teacher 
has better opportunities for creating, by precept and 
practice, those ideals of sportsmanship and fair play that 
we consider to be essential characteristics of American 
manhood and womanhood, than has one who directs the 
school's athletic teams. When a school will, while all on 
fire to win, prefer defeat to playing a "ringer" or scoring 
on an undetected foul, one can be sure the instructor of 
physical training has done his part undeniably well. 

The teacher of physical training, while he surrenders 
to each teacher of an official class, some of the work 
in making physical examinations that he formerly ex- 
pected to do, assumes in turn new obligations that are 
not limited by the customary instruction in gymnasium 
periods. These major obligations may be reviewed as 
Physical — corrective exercises for posture and carriage; 
Mental — alerfne¥s7ol5edience, control ; Moral — fair play 
and good sportsmanship. 

So if the physical training teacher be left free to con- 
centrate upon these three lines of work he will still be 
kept as hard at work as any one among the teaching 
staff. 

Perhaps at. this time when we are considering school 
athletic teams and the work in physical training, 
we may be so bold as to introduce a junior high school 
innovation that may run counter to the school and 
college prejudices of over a century. 



PHYSICAL TRAINING, CHARACTER BUILDING 213 

For several generations, though more particularly in 
the last quarter century, the coveted college letter to 
be worn on the cap or sweater has been awarded only 
to the man who has defended his college on a carefully 
selected team in intercollegiate athletics. To many a 
college man the wearing of the "H" the "Y" or the 
"P" has meant greater honor than could be conferred 
by any royal diadem. This we would not change were 
it within our power. And yet in the high schools our atti- 
tude may be otherwise. By imitation our high schools 
and junior high schools have gradually taken up this 
honored college custom and the boy who is permitted, 
as a result of prominence in interschool athletics, to wear 
the school letter on his cap or sweater is pretty sure to 
be acclaimed a hero and a leader no matter how small 
otherwise may be his qualifications for such an exalted 
position. 

Let us confess that in our secondary school athletics 
many a poor student and worse sportsman has thus been 
raised up as an ideal for his schoolmates to imitate. 
Let us confess too that occasionally some youngster who 
represented in his person, his character and his conduct 
almost everything (except bodily vigor) for which his 
school did not stand, has yet worn the coveted distinc- 
tion and flaunted it for all the school to see until expulsion 
terminated his meteoric career. Thereafter we may have 
seen our school's proud letter displayed wherever loafers 
congregated or ne'er-do-wells assembled. 

Is it not possible for us in the junior high school to 
plan to have each wearer of our school letter an all-around 
leader and an example of everything that is highest and 
best in our school life, rather than an example in one line 
alone? For each junior high school there is, or should be, 
an ideal boy, existing only in imagination to be sure, but 



214 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

none the less real — for he is the type of boy we teachers 
would like to see filling every seat and the boy each of 
our pupils would like himself to be, for this ideal boy 
has many human and attractive characteristics that 
appeal to boys as well as to grown-ups. Because he is 
the boy we wish our boys to resemble, he will probably 
be more than an average athlete, but he will be a good 
student too, or at least no failure in the tasks that ostensi- 
bly he came to school to accomplish. Morever, he will 
be an honest, truth-telling boy, brave in encounter, 
yet kind in his dealings with his fellows. He will not 
be selfish, self centered, or clannish, nor yet will he be 
"hail fellow well met" with every opponent of school 
authority. 

If we can picture such a fellow in our mind's eye and 
then reduce his character to writing, we have the basis 
for awarding our school letter to those who will wear it 
with the greatest credit to themselves and greatest assist- 
ance to their fellows who will applaud and imitate them. 

One school has been trying for some years to do this 
and, while it cannot report that it has fully succeeded, it 
still can report progress toward success. Not then so 
much as a model for others to imitate, as an illustration 
of how one school is trying to use its school letter to 
indicate real leadership, the Requirements for the Speyer 
"S" are appended much in the same form as they are 
handed to each boy in Speyer School. 

The Speyer ratings, hereinafter described, may now 
merely be noted as 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, ranging from 1 which 
shows the highest success, to 5 which indicates failure. 



PHYSICAL TRAINING, CHARACTER BUILDING 215 

THE SPEYER "S" 

Do You Want to Wear the Speyer "S"f 
1. General Requirements 

1. In order .to gain the Speyer "S", students must work 

towards a total of not less than 280 points, selected 
from the ones hereinafter described. 

2. At least 70 points must be secured in each division, as 

70 points in physical, 70 points in social, 70 points in 
moral and 70 points in mental. 

3. Additional points above 70 remaining may be gained with- 

out reserve under any or all of the other divisions, 

4. To those students gaining a total of 430 points, the 

Speyer Sweaters will be awarded. 

5. No student will be eligible for the Speyer "S" until he 

has completed one year at Speyer School, or for the 
Speyer Sweater until he has completed one and one 
half years. 

NoTe 

1. A month before the end of the term, the Board of 

Judges, consisting of the principal or his deputy, three 
members of the faculty and four representatives of the 
student body, will meet for as long a time as will be 
deemed necessary to decide what students have met 
the requirements for the Speyer "S" or Speyer Sweater. 

2. Every student must hold himself ready to appear before 

the Board when notified to do so, or to submit such 
written evidence as the Board may require. 

3. All written material necessary in meeting the various 

requirements, or presented in any way for evidence, 
must be plainly written, on one side of sheets of the 
same size, all securely fastened together. 

4. For every section covered, a new sheet must be used, 

showing your name, class, date, the division heading 
and the number of the section you are writing about, 
viz: 

John Smith. Class D2 June 1, 1921. 

Ill Social Efficiency. Section 4, Helping Classmates 



216 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

I Physical Efficiency. 70 Points Required. Points Max, 

1. Making one or more of the class 

teams 20 

2. Making one or more of the school teams 25 

3. The correction within six months, or 

marked improvement, of any physical 
handicaps relating to eyes, nose, skin, 
throat, feet, etc 10 20 

4. Retaining perfect posture while standing, 

sitting, or performing any exercises for 
a period of six months, and receiving a 
mark of not less than 2 from the lead- 
ers 10 

5. Bringing evidence from parents or guard- 

ians that immediately on arising in the 
morning, a cold shower, or wet cloth 
rub, or cold air bath with deep breath- 
ing exercises has been for six months 
practiced regularly at home 10 20 

6. Presenting evidence of having attended 

group hikes within four months cover- 
ing not less than 100 miles, or an equiv- 
alent in out-door group activity accept- 
able to the judges 10 30 

7. Giving proof of knowing a scientific 

health regimen, suitable to your age, 
covering — 

(a) A proper diet for three meals 

(b) Proper sleeping regulations 

, (c) Other essential health rules 15 

II Social Efficiency 

1. Being a member of one or more accred- 

ited school clubs with a record of at- 
tending at least 15 meetings for each 
term 20 

2. Acting efficiently as a leader or an official, 

or doing some conspicuously merito- 
rious committee work in any club 
entire term 20 



PHYSICAL TRAINING, CHARACTER BUILDING 217 

3. Knowing the first and the last names and 

speaking more than once or twice a 
month to not less than 50 pupils in 
Speyer School outside of those in 
your own school year 10 25 

4. Proving that you have genuinely helped 

at one time or another, at least 5 dif- 
ferent schoolmates in their studies and 
habits. (This is the opposite of permit- 
ting classmates to copy your home 
work) 20 

5. Work done with any single individual 

resulting in his marked physical, mental 

or moral improvement 10 

6. Being especially helpful in some definite, 

responsible way to the teacher, for a 

period of not less than four months. . 20 

7. Being active in the maintenance of a vol- 

untary group leading towards higher 
ideals, mentally, morally, socially or 
physically in one or more special 
fields 10 25 

II Mental Efficiency 

1. Having a record of no 4's in any subject 

(unless just cause can be given) for a 

period of four months 30 

2. Receiving four ratings better than 3 dur- 

ing the previous four months with 

no rating below 3 10 40 

3. Receiving in physical training a mark 

averaging not less than 2 for 4 consecu- 
tive months in alertness and con- 
trol ; 10 20 

4. Submitting an original set of acceptable 

essays on school work written at home 

and not required as school work .... 10 40 

5. Submitting in writing at least three prac- 

tical ways in which you think that you 
have helped, or are trying to help to 



218 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

make Speyer School more interesting 
or better in any way regarding the 
courses of study, methods of work, or 

school administration 10 30 

6. Composing a school or class play, song, 
or cheer which shall be adopted by the 
class, or school, or writing a story ac- 
cepted by the school paper 10 20 

IV Moral Efficiency 

1. Receiving a mark not less than 2 in "reli- 

ability" for the term 20 

2. Receiving a mark averaging not less than 

2 in "self control" for the term 20 

3. Bringing absolutely convincing proof, 

endorsed by parents and teachers show- 
ing the maintenance of good habits of 
character regularly practiced for at 
least four months at home and in 
school 10 40 

4. Showing evidence whereby you helped 

arouse the opinion of the class against 
an individual, or group of individuals, 
who by actions or words tended 
towards the setting up of bad prac- 
tices 20 

5. Writing a digest of not less than 500 

words as to what your idea is as to the 
make-up and practices of a courageous, 
fair and square self-controlled and clean 
young man who lives up to the 
Speyer Creed 10 40 



QUESTIONS 

1. What new demand upon the public has resulted from the 

findings of the selective draft in the World War? 

2. To what extent may the colleges be blamed? 

3. What change might we expect would follow entrance 

requirements in Bodily Vigor? 



PHYSICAL TRAINING, CHARACTER BUILDING 219 

4. What Nutrition grades are now recognized and what 

roughly characterize each grade? 

5. What are the chief reported causes of the "Threes" and 

"Fours"? 

6. What specialists are needed to prescribe for these con- 

ditions ? 

7. Why cannot even the teacher of Physical Training be ex- 

pected to take these cases in hand? 

S. In default of a professional diagnosis what nutrition 
measurements may we take? 

9. What interference with our health efforts may be ex- 
pected and how may this be guarded against in advance ? 

10. What is the chief value of the teachers' health survey and 

what points may it well cover? 

11. What three ideals or abilities may we expect the teacher 

of Physical Training to develop? 

12. Plan a set of requirements to be set as a standard for 

pupils who would be permitted officially to represent 
in their persons what my school stands for? 



CHAPTER XIII 
TEACHING PUPILS TO STUDY ALONE 

In this discussion we have some advantage in the 
greater defmiteness of our problem. We are dealing with 
children of a uniform age of school development con- 
cerned with subject-matter which itself is more or less 
uniform for the group. And yet the problem is not the 
one of teaching the pupils how to study even introductory 
junior high school work, but that of teaching pupils how 
to study introductory junior high school English Liter- 
ature, Composition, Introductory Mathematics (Arith- 
metic, Geometry, Algebra), General Science, a Foreign 
Language and the other work of the seventh school year 
in a junior high school. 

Of necessity each one of the five major (and two 
minor) lines of junior high school work has its own pe- 
culiar problems to be worked out in a way peculiar to 
that subject and the best guide for a junior high school 
teacher would be a set of directions worked out for the 
various advancing steps of each special subject, week by 
week. It may be possible that we as teachers will never 
be really successful in our efforts until some one has 
worked out for us, subject by subject, topic by topic, 
the guide we need to help us to make our pupils less de- 
pendent upon our guidance and more able to help them- 
selves. No such exactness will be attempted here. 

Let us acknowledge that the teacher requires a special- 
ized knowledge of each separate subject to make a 

220 



TEACHING PUPILS TO STUDY ALONE 221 

plan for teaching pupils to study that subject, and that no 
general directions common to all can do more than point 
the way. Nevertheless, something is gained if we can 
show even the direction in which, if effort is applied, a 
greater degree of success can be secured than in the cus- 
tomary ways. 

It has been assumed by many that successful self- 
help on the part of the pupil is, after all, a matter of 
will power. Some, who have not themselves studied this 
problem in detail, will assert that any pupil can study 
alone if he only makes up his mind to do so. These 
people will assert that laziness is the chief barrier to be 
overcome and that when the teacher has established a 
high degree either of interest or of fear of failure, the 
pupil will be automatically be able to study with little or 
no need of outside help. Whatever modicum of truth 
there may be in this position, it is still more true that 
those who assume this position are the ones most largely 
responsible for the enormous percentage of pupils now 
leaving high school during its earlier years. 

In a certain school for one reason or another (pride 
of rank, fear of failure, special privileges secured, or even 
a high sense of duty), the majority of the pupils stuck to 
their lessons until they were satisfactorily completed. 
A questionnaire distributed among the successful pupils 
of this high school, and later checked up, disclosed the 
fact that most of the more successful pupils were working 
from four to six hours on their lessons outside of school. 
Yet no teacher in this school was aware that the total 
of the daily work assigned called for, from the average 
scholars, more than half of the time that even the bright- 
est pupils really required for their daily preparation. 

In another school the experiment was tried of having 
the class teachers suddenly and without previous notice 



222 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

work out themselves the lessons they had assigned to one 
class for the following day. Each teacher was re- 
quested to keep an accurate account of the time required, 
which included the collection of the necessary books and 
getting settled for the task, as well as the time actually 
spent in working out the lesson. Again the results were 
both startling and enlightening — the total time spent 
by the teachers themselves approximated closely the time 
in which the pupils had been expected to do this same 
work. In one subject the total time required by the 
teacher to work out only one of several topics assigned 
for the next day's lesson exceeded the total time 
which the teacher had supposed necessary for his pupils 
to finish the entire work of preparation. 

It is not necessary for us to investigate the schools, 
the dates and the assignments about which these true 
incidents are related. Almost any school, where no special 
emphasis has been placed upon unreasonableness in les- 
son preparation, will give the same result. If each of 
us will resolve to make these experiments in our 
own school we will have enough facts to convince us 
that we have at least one point that needs correction. 

To simplify our problem, however, let us assume for the 
purposes of further discussion that all, or practically all, 
our pupils are seriously interested in preparing at home 
the lessons we daily assign. Let us further assume that 
our pupils are not incapable of the demands of our sub- 
ject as we understand them. We cannot well ask more 
than this as a favorable setting for home study, unless 
we take one further step and ask that each of our pupils 
be provided with a quiet room alone at home where there 
will be no distraction or interruption to interfere with 
his orderly preparation of the assigned work. With all 
these assumptions (and we know how unreal they ac- 



TEACHING PUPILS TO STUDY ALONE 223 

tually are in the average class of average children) if we 
still find that our problem remains a troublesome one 
we are at least isolating its difficulties. 

Perhaps we can find no better way of creating artifi- 
cially the conditions we have assumed than to give up 
for some one period our usual recitation in order that we 
may devote this time to letting our pupils prepare their 
next day's work for us in our own class room as we look 
on. Given this setting, our pupils are to be permitted 
to work as they please, without interruptions or direc- 
tions from any source, most particularly without inter- 
ference by the teacher himself, save, with one necessary 
modification later to be explained. In order that we 
may be better able to observe our pupils at study, the 
lesson assigned for preparation at this special time will 
have been most carefully worked out in advance by us. 
We will know its easy and its difficult steps — its es- 
sentials and its non-essentials and in point of time re- 
quired, we will adapt this assignment, for completion, 
within the period we are devoting to it. Again, we must 
confess, we will have a set of conditions most unusual in 
the pupil's ordinary preparation for their work alone. 

Now the stage is surely set for successful independent 
study, but in order that we may follow more readily 
the workings of our pupil's minds, we must introduce 
one element of possible distraction. Before our pupils 
actually begin work we will provide each pupil with three 
sheets of paper — or one large sheet ruled in three divi- 
sions — upon which they may scribble as they study. 
One sheet will be headed "Most Important," one "Impor- 
tant" and the third "Unimportant" or "Trivial." 

As each pupil studies, he is requested to jot down a 
word, a phrase, or a sentence to show how he would clas- 
sify the various points of the lesson that interest him or 



224 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

claim his more than ordinary attention. It will be most 
interesting and instructive for the teacher, if he walks 
quietly around the room glancing at the pupils' written 
notes as the period progresses. Finally, let the teacher 
collect at the end of the period all these papers on which 
the pupils have been classifying (according to the value 
of each), the facts or processes they have been studying. 

It will now be our task to go over by ourselves alone 
the lesson assigned for the period just completed and to 
classify just as the pupils were asked to do, the various 
elements of the assigned work upon our "Most Impor- 
tant," "Important," or "Unimportant" pages as the case 
requires. 

Comparing finally the pupils' total work with our own 

— and supposing our own classification to be the cor- 
rect one — which we must admit is not always the case 

— we will have the basis for finding out the ease and 
accuracy with which our pupils went to the heart of the 
problem we had set them. Unless our school be one in 
a hundred — a school where our pupils have long been 
trained to study by themselves — a school where teaching 
how to study has been a most important part of each" 
week's work of instruction, we will all, whatever be our 
subject, find approximately the same results. 

By and large, we will find that facts we consider 
"Most Important" will appear in the pupils' classification 
as "Trivial" about as often as they appear in their true 
place. Trivial things will equally appear classified about 
as often as "Most Important" as in any other division, 
while "Important Things" will be more or less equally 
distributed in the three classifications. If we are in doubt 
as to our findings, we may try the test again and again 
with other classes or with other assignments. Unless our 
classes have been specially trained, the results will be 



TEACHING PUPILS TO STUDY ALONE 225 

astonishing. Varying slightly with the native ability or 
inherited intelligence of each pupil, our general results 
will not differ greatly from a chance distribution, as one 
might deal a pack of shuffled cards face down into three 
piles. 

To that degree which any pupil is found repeatedly able 
to approximate the teacher's (the correct) classification 
to that degree the pupil may be said to have learned 
how to study alone. From these and from subsequent 
similar tests the teacher may secure a rough, but never- 
theless significant measure of the extent to which any 
pupil may have learned to work independently of out- 
side help. 

Should anyone remain unconvinced of the truth of our 
contention that the pupil's total inability, without train- 
ing, to distinguish essentials lies in the heart of our 
difficulty, this further experiment is proposed. 

Under the same conditions as for the previous tests 
let the teacher arrange a list of from ten to twenty brief 
statements taken from the work that is proposed for 
home study. These facts should be taken in sequence 
from the proposed work without regard to their impor- 
tance, taking the insignificant and significant facts in or- 
der as they may come in the text to be studied. The pu- 
pils, with their three sheets, "Most Important," "Impor- 
tant," "Unimportant" before them, are asked to classify 
the facts as they are slowly dictated by the teacher. The 
pupils' results, when tabulated, are then compared with 
the teacher's subsequent classification of these same 
facts. 

Now if these tests show us nothing else than to let us 
see how hard it is for the untrained children to do the 
things we consider simple and easy, they will have served 
a worthy purpose. But these tests should have done 



226 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

still more. By means of these tests we should become 
convinced that the barrier to satisfactory home study 
lies primarily in neither a lack of interest nor a lack 
of industry, but first of all in the pupils' almost total 
inability to distinguish the essential from the trivial 
until he is especially trained to do so. 

Will we seem too depreciatory of our own work as 
teachers if we admit that the chief barrier to a school 
boy's learning how to study is the teacher's own failure to 
appreciate the difficulties of the work he assigns for 
home preparation. 

Assuredly by the old method of rewarding those w T ho, 
largely by chance at first, hit upon the essentials in their 
preparation, and by punishing in various ways those 
whose chance selection fails to meet our approval, we 
will gradually teach our pupils how to study. But what 
a blind and wasteful method, after all, this is. How 
much better it would be if we could make our pupils' 
efforts more productive of results from the start. Such 
a change if it comes will come first through a change in 
the teacher's own attitude toward the work he assigns. 
If one's pupils are to be taught how to study, the as- 
signment of home work will at once be that part of the 
teacher's work which will most of all require skill in 
preparation. The surpassing teacher's superiority will 
not be established by his conduct of the recitation, but 
rather by the judgment, foresight and painstaking care, 
with which he assigns the daily task his pupils are sup- 
posed to work out alone at home. 

If, for our guidance as teachers, we were to enumerate 
in sequence some of the steps necessary, if our pupils 
are to study by themselves, we might well begin with 
establishing the reasonableness (the usefulness to the 
pupil) of the major subject itself. If the subject of studv 



TEACHING PUPILS TO STUDY ALONE 22,7 

is history, we must take the time to convince our pupils 
that from every viewpoint the study of history is the 
most valuable subject that could be selected for that 
fraction of the pupil's school day which it is assigned on 
the school program. We must not be so unfair as to at- 
tempt to persuade our pupils that history is the one 
subject worth studying, but we must convince him that 
no other subject, whether offered for instruction or 
not, could possibly secure for him the peculiar benefits 
that will follow his study of history. Other subjects may 
be equally important, but if history is omitted the 
pupil will lose something that no other subject can hope 
to supply. As has often been repeated, it is the junior 
high school teacher's business to take nothing for granted 
unless it be the pupil's deep-seated aversion to the 
teacher's specialty. Each pupil must be won over to 
the reasonableness of the study of history and must be 
supplied with arguments to defend the reasonableness 
against all comers. 

As a second step the time element may be considered. 
Each teacher knows, or should know, that his assignment 
is not the only one to be prepared at home by the pupil 
the coming night. Not less than three, usually four r 
lessons will need the pupil's attention every evening. 
We all know and possibly all despise the teacher who 
seeks to establish the importance of his subject by assign- 
ing as "absolutely necessary" a lesson for home prepara- 
tion that will require every minute of the pupil's total 
time. Except for the subjects that may require no home 
preparation at all, as shop work, sewing, drawing, music, 
it is but fair to assume that each subject is entitled only 
to that part of the pupil's weekly home preparation that 
the subject itself is granted in the weekly time schedule 
of the school program. If a subject is granted one fifth, 



228 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

or one seventh, or one twelfth of the weekly school pro- 
gram, its right is established to the same fraction of the 
pupil's home preparation and to no more. 

A principal who wishes to make this second step in 
home study successful can do no better than to call into 
conference in turn all the subject teachers of each class, 
leaving to these teachers the problem of working out a 
daily schedule for the week's home study. A "gentlemen's 
agreement as to the home work each teacher may claim 
on any certain day is better than a peremptory order 
allotting the time allowance for each subject's daily 
preparation. 

However, the main thing here is to have the home 
work in each subject so reasonable in its time require- 
ment as to remove on the one hand the repugnance to 
study that an unfair assignment may awaken in the 
mind of a full spirited pupil, or, on the other hand, the 
theft of energy and time from relaxation and play that 
the too industrious pupil may suffer. 

So far we have taken two steps in teaching pupils how 
to study and these two steps appear to have been taken 
for the one purpose of making the proposed home study 
of our pupils more reasonable to them. The subject it- 
self is established as worth the pupils' study and the 
time allowance is reasonable (to the pupil) in amount. 
Yet unconsciously to ourselves, perhaps, we have been 
making two advances in teaching our pupils how to 
overcome the one superlative barrier to their home study 
alone — their inability to distinguish essentials from 
non-essentials in the work assigned for home study. 

In so far as our pupils understand the reasons for 
which they are studying history (to continue our ex- 
ample) and so to a degree the necessity for the particular 
assignment on which they are working, and in so far as 



TEACHING PUPILS TO STUDY ALONE 229 

they realize that what is assigned must be given a cer- 
tain definite and limited amount of serious attention, they 
are provided with certain criteria for judging the relative 
value of the various facts which the home lesson presents. 
While we have been apparently humoring the pupil in 
his attitude of having to be convinced we have in reality 
been giving him step by step the very training he needs 
in order to study our subject intelligently alone.. 

While we may appreciate the training that comes from 
establishing the reasons for studying the subject, the 
training that comes from definite time allotment may 
not have been recognized. The time element itself gives 
the pupils a basis for the selection of essentials. Given 
a certain definite amount of time for a given lesson, the 
pupil, whether he be assigned a single sentence, an exam- 
ple, a page, or a chapter, has some definite standard for 
judging the degree of thoroughness with which he is ex- 
pected to acquire the facts in question. If the pupil is 
given but a paragraph it is reasonable for him to judge, 
other things being equal, that every part of that para- 
graph is important, though some parts may be especially 
so. Similarly, if a chapter be assigned, the pupil must 
know that he cannot be expected to memorize the entire 
chapter in the time allotted, but that he must quickly try 
to find within the chapter those points which transcend 
all the others in importance and to center his attention 
upon them. 

The teacher then will not preface his assignment by 
saying, "The lesson I am assigning for your study 
to-night is a particularly difficult one," or "This will 
prove an easy lesson to prepare," because he will so appor- 
tion his assignments as to make them all approximately 
equal in difficulty. While we recognize the added work 
this places on the teacher, it is wholly unavoidable if we 



230 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

are to realize our aim. After all, we junior high school 
teachers cannot hope to escape the real burden of doing 
things that no other type of school has yet done, or at 
least has not done well. As pioneers we will, however, 
have the joy of exploration and discovery far outweigh- 
ing our discomforts. 

If the first step is to establish the reasonableness of 
each study as a whole, and the second a reasonable period 
of preparation, the third step for the teacher is to es- 
tablish the reasonableness of each lesson as it is assigned. 
This is no simple task. It adds, apparently, no light 
burden to the teacher's work. It is so much easier to 
say, "Study the next five pages"; "Prepare the next ten 
sentences"; "Work out and hand in the next ten ex- 
amples," than it is to stop and carefully explain the 
reasons for the assignment as it is announced. Teachers 
who pride themselves on being almost over-conscientious 
in their work have for years been content to say, "Your 
lesson for home study is written on the blackboard," 
believing that in writing down the assignment they have 
fulfilled every possible moral obligation toward the 
pupil. 

However, from the standpoint of teaching the pupils 
how to study, even the written assignment (with time 
provided in which to copy it down) fails entirely of es- 
tablishing what must be our third step, convincing the 
pupil of the reasonableness of the assignment itself. 

If we are to hold our pupils to account on the work we 
assign for home study, we must be positive that both we 
and our pupils know exactly what is expected in this 
period of self-preparation. In so far as our lesson as- 
signment is vague and indefinite, just so far do we .de- 
prive our pupils of any fixed basis for judging relative 
values. 



TEACHING PUPILS TO STUDY ALONE 231 

Supposing that the pupil is truly eager to prepare his 
work and that he thoroughly appreciates the importance 
of the topic assigned, still we may leave him floundering 
in a slough of despond unless we make our home re- 
quirement from this lesson, so definite that there can be 
no misunderstandings on the pupil's part, when he studies 
to-night alone at home, nor on our part, when he meets 
us tomorrow in the class room. An oral assignment 
hastily made at the close of a period, can scarcely 
be expected to make an impression that will endure 
until the time, hours afterward, when the pupil may 
sit down to work that assignment out. Few of us, 
grown men and women, would try to carry in our minds 
four separate and exacting sets of directions for tasks we 
were to undertake some hours hence. Even such brief 
notes as we might jot down would be insufficient. We 
would ask, and expect to receive, exact and explicit in- 
structions if the tasks were themselves exacting. "Oh," 
some one will say, "the pupil is expected to use his judg- 
ment." This is exactly the point. Until the pupil is 
trained he has no judgment which he can use. In order 
to make him a judge of essentials, he must be trained 
and the first training is in recognizing the essentials 
which we pick out. Gradually, the pupil will learn to 
pick out the essentials for himself, but in beginning the 
junior high school work (as now in beginning the four 
year high school work) the pupil must have the essentials 
picked out for him, by the teacher who assigns the lesson 
for home study. 

Therefore the lesson must be definite — such guides 
as may be necessary for the home study of that lesson 
must be actually written down — the assignment itself 
must be copied from the blackboard in the exact words 
of the teacher and enough time must be allowed to make 



232 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

sure that every pupil has an accurate copy. Indeed it 
might be well at the very outset for each teacher to make 
a classification of the lesson points such as we used in 
the trial tests described earlier in our discussion and to 
make this classification a part of the blackboard assign- 
ment which the pupil w T ill copy in his "For Home Study" 
note-book. 

Just as soon as we see evidences of our pupils' in- 
creasing ability to pick out essentials for themselves we 
shall, of course, cease little by little to pick out the es- 
sentials for them and so give them an opportunity to 
exercise the judgment which we are teaching them to 
develop. However, at the outset — for beginners — and 
it is beginners that we have had in mind from the start — 
we must err if at all upon the side of too much, rather 
than too little, guidance in the preparation for home 
study. 

QUESTIONS 

1 . Why is not teaching pupils how to. study a general matter 

instead of a special matter for each separate subject? 

2. What amount of time do my most successful students 

spend over their books? 

3. Have I ever tried the experiment of doing myself the home 

work I assign? With what results? 

4. What two experiments may I try in my class room to show 

me how my pupils study alone? 

5. What were my results for each experiment ? 

6. Do I know how to study? How did I learn? 

7. What is the first step in teaching my pupils how to study 

my specialty alone? 

8. How may I decide upon a reasonable time requirement for 

each separate day's home study? 

9. How does the time requirement guide a pupil in how he 

should study at home? 
10. What is the third and last step in teaching my pupils 
to study alone? Why is it so important to the pupil? 
Why is it so difficult for me? 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE PROJECT METHOD OF INSTRUCTION IN 
THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 

When mature men and women undertake the study of 
.any special subject whether it be some difficult business 
proposition, or a topic on which they seek enlightenment 
by serious reading, they have, as a rule, a very definite 
purpose in their work. So, too, young men and women 
pursuing courses in colleges usually have a more or 
less clearly defined purpose in view — which may be 
as general as the preparation for a profession or as special 
as the mastery of some problem in one of the studies 
they are pursuing. Even in the later years of the high 
school, boys and girls may work with a definite purpose 
in some or all of their selected subjects. 

However, when one considers the motives that govern 
early adolescents in their school work, one has difficulty 
in discovering that they have any serious purposes at 
all to guide them in their work. For the most part 
children of junior high school age "go to school" because 
the law requires it and their parents insist upon it. 
Others may go because they enjoy being with children 
of their own age and since their playmates go to school 
they want to go also. Repeal, however, the compulsory 
education laws, remove parental control and what a 
drop in our school attendance would immediately result! 
Later some of these very children whose natural incli- 
nation at twelve would be to keep as far away from 

233 



234 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

school as possible may study willingly far into the night 
and gladly forego all sorts of creature comforts if only 
they be permitted to continue their education. More 
than one boy now ungrudgingly laboring at all sorts of 
menial tasks to work his way through college, had to be 
driven to his school work in early adolescence. 

To more than any one other factor this change in atti- 
tude toward school work is due to the acquisition of some 
purpose in the youth's study that was wholly lacking 
in his earlier years. If junior high school pupils 
for the most part enter upon their work with no purpose 
higher than avoiding the consequences of disobedience 
— and later acquire purposes that may keep them 
eagerly at school work even to the university, it becomes 
our duty as junior high school teachers to supply worthy 
purposes for our pupils if possible from their very start 
with us. 

Since we aim to help our pupils "to do better those 
worthy things they will do anyway," we can scarcely 
furnish greater assistance than by helping them to gain 
what most of them have not when we receive them — 
a worthy purpose in their school work. 

Other things being equal, the more distant and gen- 
eral the purpose — as preparing to be an intelligent, ed- 
ucated business or professional man — the higher and 
more powerful the influence which this purpose will exert 
upon a pupil's life, but however much a youngster of 
twelve may think he wishes to realize such a distant 
aim, the difficulties and abstractions of his daily tasks 
will often prove too discouraging to make the distant 
goal an ever present help in time of trouble. 

The project method is merely a name that has been 
given to a plan of teaching by which each teacher in 
his subject attempts to supply immediate purposes which 



PROJECT METHOD OF INSTRUCTION 235 

will make the daily and weekly work really interesting 
because from it the pupil will get something — infor- 
mation, skill or power, which the boy wants or can be led 
to want at the very time this subject is being studied. 

Those who most enthusiastically support this new 
(yet centuries old) method of work, maintain that chil- 
dren come to school or are sent to school, as much to 
get purposes in their intellectual work as to get informa- 
tion from books or from teachers. Therefore they main- 
tain that the teacher who can instill facts, but who fails 
to develop worthy purposes along with facts, does only 
half the work for which he is engaged. 

From our position as moderate progressives we will 
find it difficult to avoid agreeing in part with the pro- 
ponents of the project method when we realize that pu- 
pils if they study at all must do so with some purpose 
in mind even if it be only that of escaping punishment 
or pleasing the teacher. We must agree that in so far 
as the pupil's purpose in his work is to gain information 
which he really wants for and by himself, without com- 
pulsion from without, we have raised the moral and in- 
tellectual level of the child. 

We may be teaching our specialty because we like it, 
or because we found it easier to get a license in that sub- 
ject than in some other, but we more rarely have given 
serious thought as to why our subject should appeal, 
if it does at all, to the little children we instruct. For 
most of us it is enough that our subject is "required." 
The pupil must do satisfactory work to be promoted 
(he knows that and so do we,) why distress ourselves 
with further difficulties? 

Elsewhere, under "Teaching Pupils How to Study 
Alone," we have discussed the value of sending children 
from our classes with some real problems which they 



236 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

may work out at home. The project method merely 
brings these same problems into the class rooms and 
makes the statement or re-statement of an acceptable 
problem an essential part of each day's work. 

If we would work with the highest success, the teacher 
of each subject must not only be an expert in the subject- 
matter he is engaged to teach, but an expert in the pur- 
poses of the work he daily plans for his pupils. Such a 
requirement may indeed be too high for our immediate 
fulfillment, but if we recognize that this intimate ac- 
quaintance with the purposes of our work is a desirable 
goal, we have made an undeniable, forward step. 

We may be able, perhaps, to work out one big purpose 
for all the work in our subject for a school grade and 
fail to discover purposes for some of the topics we re- 
quire day by day. Even at that, we have made prog- 
ress, provided that this one purpose is thoroughly under- 
stood by our pupils as well as by ourselves. 

Gradually as we repeat our subject term by term 
we may inject here and there a purpose that makes 
our pupil's work to that extent more interesting and 
attractive. So we strengthen our work as teachers not 
by a single cataclysmic change, but by a gradual in- 
crease year by year through careful, thoughtful, pains- 
taking study of the purposes of the work. 

Let no one think that such a progress toward profes- 
sional skill of this high type is ever a simple or an easy 
matter. No matter how sure we may be that the rurposes 
we have worked out are worthy ones, they fail entirely 
of their value in our work if we alone recognize these 
purposes as worthy. To be of value in our project 
method the purposes we propose must appeal to our 
pupils at least as strongly as to ourselves. An imposed 
purpose even though it may seem wholly rational to us 



PROJECT METHOD OF INSTRUCTION 237 

as teachers, fails utterly of its value unless the pupils 
of our class accept and appropriate it as their own. To 
require a child to memorize a purpose, which he does not 
of his own free will accept, simply adds another burden 
to the youngster's work and makes his work and ours 
more difficult when it should have been made more easy. 

At this point we stop to appreciate why a teacher who 
"understands children" is often a greater acquisition to 
our school than a teacher who understands only his sub- 
ject-matter. The teacher understanding children is far 
better able to discover purposes which will appeal to 
them and which they will accept. No matter how ex- 
pert in his specialty the teacher may be, no matter how 
thorough his scholarship and his acquaintance with his 
subject-matter, unless he can also put himself in his pu- 
pils' place and work out purposes that appeal to his pu- 
pils, he will fail not only in the project method of instruc- 
tion, but indeed in his real usefulness to the school in 
which he is employed. 

In so far as some teachers in the senior high school 
typify, as we must admit they not infrequently do, the 
type we last described, to that same extent they furnish in 
their persons as well as in their work, arguments for 
recruiting our secondary school teachers from the more 
expert workers in the grades below. 

The junior high school is in a peculiar position of 
advantage in being able to avail itself of the services 
of teacliers who, understanding children through pre- 
vious elementary school experience, have later perhaps 
become eligible for promotion through an acquired 
knowledge of the subject-matter that they are now 
called upon to teach. 

And yet in neither extreme is the best teacher found. 
Even though the advantage in using the project method 



238 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

may lie with the teacher who understands children, the 
best teacher will always be he who understands both the 
pupil and his subject. If we have raised an issue here, 
it is chiefly to emphasize one phase of the project method 
overlooked. The teacher must not only, through his 
intimate and thorough knowledge of his specialty, be 
able to discover worthy purposes for his daily work, 
but he must equally through his intimate and thorough 
knowledge of children and child-mind, be able to induce 
his pupils to accept as their very own, the purposes he 
proposes. 

Stripped of all explanations and illustrations, the proj- 
ect method in its complete adoption proposes to carry 
forward the work in each subject, by placing before the 
children who are studying that subject a series of care- 
fully planned purposes or problems, which the skillful and 
sympathetic teacher leads the children to accept as their 
very own. 

The very antithesis of the project method of in- 
struction is the assignment without word or comment of 
"the next ten examples" "the next ten sentences," "the 
next ten facts," "the next ten pages." No question is 
raised, no problem is at issue — the task is set; that is 
enough. 

On the contrary, the very acme of the project method 
is the proposal by the teacher and acceptance by the 
class of a project, or a problem whose successful com- 
pletion compels the pupil to acquire the information or 
skill desired by the teacher while enticing* the pupil to 
work earnestly and of his own free will toward the solu- 
tion which he in turn eagerly desires. 

"Teaching Technique Adjusted to the Project Method" 
was the subject of a talk by Professor Frank McMurray 
before the Alumni of Teachers College recently. The 






PROJECT METHOD OF INSTRUCTION 239 

following are in part Professor McMurray's suggestions: 

Children come to school to get purposes, they do not 
come with purposes ready made. The teacher of each 
grade must be an expert in the purposes of the work of 
her grade. These purposes must be thoroughly under- 
stood by the teacher who must by her sympathetic under- 
standing of her class induce them to accept as their 
own, worthy purposes to hold them to their school work. 

Teachers need to know why each subject receives its 
place in the curriculum and why it appears as it does in 
the plan of her grade. 

There may be one big purpose for all the work, but. 
there will be many minor purposes which may cover 
only a part of one subject, even only a few days' work 
in that subject. These minor purposes which hold the 
pupil willingly to his work for the day or week may be 
called projects. Finding a worthy project which the class 
will eagerly adopt is the first big problem in teaching by 
the project method. 

The second step is to secure an active self-expression 
and creative effort on the part of the pupils. It is a 
mistake to think that we need many projects in action 
at the same time. A project for each pupil would be a 
bad plan even if we could furnish each pupil a separate 
teacher. Pupils need training in cooperative effort. They 
must be trained to help each other as well as to help 
themselves. A recitation under the project method is 
a report of the committee at work on that project — 
usually merely a report of progress with the progress 
outlined and checked up. 

The teacher's work is to correct errors that will creep 
into this report and to show the pupils the easiest and 
best way to get the material for their next report. 

The finished report of the class may be finally sum- 



240 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

marized by the class and the teacher — for the purposes 
of record and review. 

Two good projects illustrating the principles enumer- 
ated, are quoted from Professor McMurray: 

1. For the eighth year arithmetic, "How best could I invest 

one thousand dollars?" 

This requires knowledge of stocks and bonds — of interest 
returns on market values — of the relative values of 
certain types of investments — of savings banks and com- 
pound interest and indeed of a large fraction of the work 
now covered in the eighth school year. 

2. For the fifth year geography, "What could I observe on a 

leisurely trip by rail, boat or auto from New York City 
to Duluth, Minn?" 

This arouses an interest in the topography, agriculture and 
industries of the region covered. Thus pupils learn the 
usual geography of this region in a new and unusually 
interesting way. 

The concrete examples taken by Professor McMurray 
from the arithmetic and geography of the lower grades 
may serve to suggest similar possibilities in our own 
specialty, but it is hardly within the scope of our present 
discussion to lay out a series of model projects in the 
various subjects of instruction. Our aim here is simply 
to show the necessity of finding projects, if we are really 
to accomplish the best results of which we are capable. 

Possibly it may seem to require an inventiveness which 
we do not possess to link up something in which children 
may be honestly interested, with the topic we may be 
obliged to teach. Right here the extremists will pro- 
claim that those who cannot find worthy pupil-projects 
for their work should not be allowed to teach at all. 
Indeed there is an increasing number of students of 
teaching and supervision who would make this ability 
to establish the reasonableness of each teacher's specialty 



PROJECT METHOD OF INSTRUCTION 241 

the basic requirement in licensing all junior high school 
teachers. 

Without taking this extreme position, though it is 
to an extent a defensible one, we may be permitted to 
close our chapter with a discussion of one concrete sug- 
gestion that all teachers may find valuable. 

The point of beginning for a worthy project is not, 
as it might seem, the topic which we wish to teach, but, 
instead, the things our pupils are now interested in doing 
or learning to do. We must be opportunists to a marked 
degree, in that we must seize upon those worthy interests 
which the school life, the newspapers, the local adult 
interests make predominant interests in the children's 
minds for the time. Find, if we can, what the majority 
of our pupils in each class are most interested in at the 
time our new topic is to be taught and then study the 
point, or points, where this interest may be led to reach 
the new topic we must teach. 

Right here the proponents of the old "study because it 
is your duty" type of teaching will take issue with 
us because we will be accused of a sort of mental trickery 
in stretching the pupil's present interests to reach topics 
that may seem very foreign to them. To a certain ex- 
tent, these objectors may appear to be justified. They 
themselves have never given much thought to the pos- 
sibilities of joining pupil's interests with the topics they 
have been in the habit of teaching and so, failing to rec- 
ognize any connections, they assume that none exist. 
The discoverer of alleged connections is accused of simply 
fooling the pupils and therefore is to be vigorously con- 
demned. 

A careful analysis of the situation will, however, con- 
vince us that even the objectors to our project-teaching 
have been project-teachers themselves, did they but know 



242 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

it. The project that these "study because it is your duty" 
teachers have been all unconsciously proposing to each 
succeeding class, is a project which, if stated in the pupils' 
words, might often read, "How can I avoid a failing mark 

in ?" or "What must I learn about to avoid 

some kind of punishment from the teacher?" The newer 
project-teaching merely plans to substitute a project 
based on information which the pupil may be led to 
desire for himself, rather than upon information which 
the pupil feels that he needs only to escape the teacher's 
censure. Our newer plan finds nothing to apologize for 
in establishing connections which the older plan has over- 
looked, or perhaps, has never looked for. 

It is to be presumed that every topic in every sub- 
ject taught in the junior high school will be taught be- 
cause it has some other purpose than of giving the pupil 
"the basis of school "marks" and school "promotion." 
If ever a topic can be found that bears no relation 
whatsoever to "those worthy things our pupils do any- 
vray," then we have the strongest possible grounds for its 
total rejection as not being "material in itself worth 
while." However, we would do well to hesitate before 
condemning any topic because we ourselves cannot, at 
first, see its connection with the pupils' present interests. 
On the contrary, we may do best by assuming that a con- 
nection exists, if we will but make a serious study of the 
situation. 

For the ' consolation of those who feel the task too 
difficult, may we not say that others in the same frame 
of mind have worked out solution after solution until 
they were able finally to make practically all their 
work appear reasonable and interesting to the pupils who 
w r ere asked to study it, by starting with things the pupils 
really wanted to learn. 






PROJECT METHOD OF INSTRUCTION 243 

As a starting point may we propose a project for those 
of us who have been convinced that our pupils may be 
led to study because of the added information, or power, 
they themselves really desire at the time. Let us give our 
pupils a sheet of blank paper upon which each will be asked 
to write three or four things he himself is honestly most in- 
terested in learning more about right here and now. After 
we have tabulated our results, let us take them home and 
compare these topics which the pupils propose, with 
those topics that our work requires us to teach. 
Perhaps we shall be obliged to ask for assistance from 
many others but be assured, in the end, we shall find 
some connections between the two. Upon these con- 
nections we may then base our class projects, being 
assured, however slender our connections may be, that 
we have made some progress in the right direction. 

In our discussiou of the Socialized Recitation which 
follows, we may get further help in finding ways and 
means of utilizing — not one interest and so one proj- 
ect for our entire class — but in using some proj ects that 
will appeal to certain of our pupils and other projects 
that will appeal to others, thus simplifying our diffi- 
culties and yet achieving the desired results. 



QUESTIONS 

1. What do I understand by the "immediateness" of project 

teaching ? 

2. Why should I make a study of the reasonableness of my 

specialty to the pupils I teach? 

3. What worthy deferred purposes can I propose for students 

of my subject? 

4. Why cannot all worthy immediate purposes be also planned 

in advance? 

5. Why is the finding of worthy immediate purposes so diffi- 

cult? 



244 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

6. What advantage here has the teacher who understands 

children, over the teacher who only understands his 
specialty ? 

7. How can I train myself to find worthy immediate purposes 

for my pupils? 



CHAPTER XV 

THE SOCIALIZED RECITATION IN THE JUNIOR 
HIGH SCHOOL 

A few years ago the socialized recitation was heralded 
as a most desirable innovation in school work. Today 
one hears less of it as a distinct classroom method and 
yet the very publicity given to this proposed improvement 
has left its mark on all class work in the better type of 
schools. In those institutions beyond the grade of high 
school where teachers have been given their education, 
in the colleges especially, the predominant type of in- 
struction has been, and to a lesser extent still is, the lec- 
ture method. Students were expected to come to their 
college class room with notebooks, pads, pens and pen- 
cils, and to sit in silence for an hour, taking such written 
memoranda of what the professor said as seemed to them 
most essential. The professor's part was to give, all the 
information, to do all the talking. The student's part 
was to sit, quietly attentive, absorbing and remembering 
what he could of the information that the professor laid 
before him. 

No one has ever maintained that this lecture method 
was a desirable type of work for younger children, but, 
nevertheless, as more college men and women entered 
upon the work of teaching there was, perhaps, uncon- 
sciously, more and more of the lecture method injected 
into high school instruction and it even began to work 
its way down into' the elementary school grades. 

245 



246 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

To bring the situation squarely to the attention of 
students of good teaching, one or more deeper inves- 
tigators devised the scheme of taking stenographic re- 
ports of scores of recitations selected at random in sev- 
eral schools. The published results of these recitations 
disclosed a situation that was at once recognized as well 
nigh universal, as well as highly undesirable. By and 
large, it was found that in the average upper grade 
class room the teacher did from three-quarters to nine- 
tenths of all the talking — or conversely, that the children 
were permitted to take an active part in their own class- 
room education for not more than one-quarter of the time 
— usually much less — while for the remainder they were 
supposed to sit still and "absorb" what the teacher was 
attempting to disclose or explain. Pro-rated equally 
among the pupils of a junior high school class of thirty- 
five children, it would mean that in a recitation of forty- 
five minutes any one individual pupil would be allowed 
no more than twenty seconds for his individual speaking 
part in that class gathering. 

On the same basis, for the four or five daily recitations 
attended by each pupil in a junior high school, each pupil 
would receive, as his own individual and peculiar oppor- 
tunity to express himself, a maximum of less than two 
minutes, often less than one minute, for all the recitations 
of an entire school day. 

As a matter of fact, we know that some pupils al- 
ways take much more than their proportionate two min- 
utes, but we also know that there are always more who 
take absolutely no part at all in many recitations on 
many days. 

To meet the objections so evident in recitations of the 
customary type where the teacher had the only speak- 
ing part, it has been proposed to turn over the recita- 



THE SOCIALIZED RECITATION 247 

tion to the pupils who, under the teacher's skillful guid- 
ance, should themselves propose the questions other pu- 
pils were to answer and, through a chairman of their 
own, were to reverse the time ratio giving the pupils 
more than three-quarters and the teacher less than one- 
quarter of the class time devoted to oral work. 

In voluntary gatherings of adult citizens where men 
or women meet "to do business," whether in clubs, so- 
cieties, or business groups, it is customary for all who 
are interested, or informed, to take some part in the 
discussion and for each from his special viewpoint to 
contribute as much as he is able to make the joint decision 
a wise and profitable one. When special provision is 
necessary, to gather information which is not at hand, 
committees are appointed and their reports are heard 
at subsequent meetings. So the group "does business" 
by pooling their experience and their intelligence to the 
end that each one in the group benefits by the com- 
bined wisdom of all. Furthermore, each one, even though 
he be voted down, is a co-partner in the enterprise or 
undertaking; his part counts for something worth while 
to all the others, even if that part be nothing more than 
to say "aye" or "no" when the final vote is taken. 

If school life is to be in any real sense a preparation for 
life outside the school — and still more if we consider school 
life, to be not a preparation for life outside of school, 
but a real part of it — there is need for revising the cus- 
tomary school room practice to make it more natural and, 
indeed, more civilized by giving the pupils in their 
various recitations an opportunity to approximate, to 
some extent at least, the methods of "doing business" 
which their grown-up friends use when they meet vol- 
untarily in organizations outside the home. 

The socialized recitation in its extreme application 



248 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

may present a more or less accurate copy of a study-club 
of adults. Under the astute guidance of a teacher of 
most unusual ability, such a class recitation may appear 
to run itself. Some pupils propose propositions which 
others discuss, evaluate and decide; all the pupils are 
self-active, all are eager participants. The teacher, 
though present in person, seems absent so far as par- 
ticipation in the class discussion is concerned. One can 
but be tremendously impressed by witnessing such a 
recitation where everything possible under the older 
methods of work is secured and, in addition, so much 
animation, life and enjoyment are manifested by the 
pupils, whose previous part had been only to sit still and 
listen. 

If, however, we are to look behind the curtain, we 
may discover a high degree of artificiality in all that 
apparently took place so naturally, before our eyes. 
We might find that this socialized recitation which we 
have witnessed was most skillfully planned in advance, 
almost as one might stage a play — that each pupil was 
trained to do his special part and that this single rec- 
itation took hours of preparatory work on the teacher's 
part to make it the success that we observed. Many 
of us may have witnessed prepared recitations where 
the whole truth might be not far different from the one 
just described. 

Critics now may maintain that our pupils do not meet 
in their class room with their teacher on an equal foot- 
ing — as do men and women who gather in voluntary 
groups, but that the class room more nearly approxi- 
mates the conditions in the pupil's home where mother 
and father rarely call committee meetings of their 
children to decide what is best for them to eat, or to 
wear, or when to go to bed. It may further be con- 



THE SOCIALIZED RECITATION 249 

tended that if children were able largely, if not wholly, 
to conduct the recitations themselves, we should not 
need trained teachers to teach each class, but only one 
super-teacher to plan tasks for each recitation group 
within a school. 

We have then two extreme points of view with con- 
tentions of undoubted validity at each extreme. In 
our junior high school we have, as a rule, pupils who 
are better able to judge for themselves than are their 
younger brothers in the elementary school, but who are 
still far from adult intelligence in matters of information 
and judgment. To expect these children to conduct 
their own recitations without more preparation and train- 
ing than the average teacher is prepared to give, is an 
absurdity that answers itself. On the contrary, we may 
find it just as absurd to expect these children to be best 
educated by a process which regards them as sponges to 
soak up the stream of knowledge, large or small, which the 
teacher pours forth. 

Taking a middle ground in the junior high school we 
may grant that the pupil should at least be permitted to 
express himself daily in his recitations whenever, in the 
teacher's judgment, such an expression may help the 
work of others in his class. It becomes the junior high 
school teacher's duty then to be constantly alert to the 
possibility of securing genuine contributions from every 
pupil for the advancement of the class lesson. A teacher 
who has the better point of view will never tell a fact, 
or explain a process, which some pupil, under guidance 
and with slight assistance, can tell plainly in approxi- 
mately the same length of time. 

To this extent at least, we will agree that every junior 
high school recitation ought to be "socialized" by making 
it incumbent upon the teacher to consider his class as 



250 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

a group working with him toward a common end — the 
appreciation of some new question, proposition, proc- 
ess. To the same extent the teacher ceases to be a 
superior, a lecturer, and places himself more on the 
pupil' ; own level in order to work with him for a com- 
mon purpose rather than to work at him upon a task 
in which the pupil may have no sincere concern. 

Instead of expecting each pupil simply to listen to, 
and absorb, the wisdom of the teacher, we should ex- 
pect each junior high school pupil to be constantly alert 
to contribute something which will make the progress 
of the class more rapid and more sure, toward that com- 
plete understanding of the lesson which is the aim of the 
socialized class. The pupil now may be expected to 
raise his hand, or claim the floor, not to show that he 
individually has grasped the point in advance of others, 
or not to show the teacher how much " smarter" he is than 
his fellows. On the contrary, if a pupil now asks the 
floor, it will be to offer some suggestion, or to give a 
point of view that will help his classmates to learn what 
he believes will help them to secure a better appreciation 
of the topic under discussion. 

Pupil help in class room instruction, however, must not 
be confused, either in the teacher's, or the pupil's mind, 
with that blurting out of information which robs the one 
who has the floor of the right to make his own contribu- 
tion. The over-smart, or over-impulsive, pupil who wants 
to answer every question, or explain every difficulty, 
must be led to see that he is, however unintentionally, 
no better than a thief if he robs a classmate of his oppor- 
tunity to make a personal contribution. When con- 
tributions are asked from volunteers the brighter pupil's 
opportunity will come, but when a fellow pupil has the 
floor he must respect him as he himself would hope to be 
respected in a like situation. 



THE SOCIALIZED RECITATION 251 

Similarly, while it may be both fitting and proper for 
two or more pupils to work out their home assignment 
together, and much may be said for the value of such 
cooperative effort, especially when all the partners are 
on the same intellectual level, still this must not be con- 
fused with lending home work, that a less industrious, 
or more selfish, classmate may copy it and present it 
as his own. Just as it is unfair for one pupil to steal 
another's contribution in the class room, it is equally 
unfair to pauperize a classmate by depriving him of 
that training in self-help which each one in the class 
is supposed to receive by home preparation of assigned 
tasks. 

The boy who can be led to see that the habitual lending 
of his prepared written work weakens rather than helps 
his friend and makes his friend more and more a helpless 
parasite, will be less ready to harm his friend by appear- 
ing to help him. Even the would-be borrower, when he has 
to present his results to his classmates rather than to his 
teacher, may feel somewhat differently about sailing 
under false colors. In school-boy ethics it may, in some 
sections, be fair sport to deceive the teacher, but there 
are few localities where constantly tricking one's fellows 
is ever given the continued approval of the gang. In- 
deed we may hope to have our pupils accept to a greater 
degree than before Polonius' advice "Neither a borrower 
nor a lender, be." 

So it is that a proper conception of the co-partner- 
ship of the class in the business of getting an education 
may extend and should extend beyond the class room 
door in its influence on the pupil's character as well as 
upon his progress in school. Our improvement in method 
is surely ethical, but it is more than that. 

As high school teachers are often heard to say, regard- 



252 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

ing difficult steps in their own specialty, "I never really 
understood those steps until I began to teach them" — 
thus giving voice to the truth that by helping others 
to appreciate we often appreciate more fully ourselves, 
so high school students by being given an opportunity 
in the class room to help each other may be permitted 
to gain that same better insight, or higher appreciation, 
that comes only through actually assisting in the teach- 
ing of others. 

Indeed if once we, as teachers, set as our aim the with- 
holding of any information which the class may con- 
tribute without too great loss of time, we may then be 
led to go even farther and begin to believe that we should 
give no instruction in the class room that some pupil, or 
pupils, may give for us without greatly delaying the 
class progress. 

Let us confess that the great barrier of letting our 
pupils do all they are able, in our recitations, is the 
element of time. Skilled as we may be in the work at 
hand, familiar as we are with the steps in the process, 
knowing as we do in advance all the difficulties of the 
lesson, we may well hesitate to delay the class progress 
by asking contributions from those infinitely inferior 
in information and training. 

Is it not better for us to go ahead explaining (lecturing 
if we must), laying the whole matter before the class, 
in a manner so manifestly simple that all have but to 
attend in order to comprehend? In the past the custom- 
ary answer has been, "Surely. Teach, tell, explain; that is 
what you are paid for." Yet the results in the past have 
not been so surprisingly superior that we are led to be- 
lieve there can be no improvement. No matter how 
skillful may have been our presentation of a new topic 
we have been perennially surprised by the large number 



THE SOCIALIZED RECITATION 253 

who always showed in their written reviews that they 
had not remembered our presentation, even if they fol- 
lowed it at the time. Might we not, on the whole, have 
been saved the time we spent in going over a presentation 
a second, a third and even a fourth time, in order to make 
it carry over, if we had given the pupils themselves a 
hand in that first presentation? 

After all, it is not the educational feast we place be- 
fore our pupils that nourishes them, but rather what they 
accept and assimilate that strengthens their mental make- 
up. From time immemorial horses have been led to 
water, frequently with disappointing results. We know 
that it is equally true that we may lead our pupils to in- 
formation without being able to make them think. How- 
ever, if that withholding of thought by the pupil ceases 
to be a matter of his individual loss, but rather a bar- 
rier to the progress of his fellows, the normal good- 
willed boy or girl becomes alive to a new pressure that 
may gain results where the selfish appeal might have 
failed. 

Not only in development lessons where the matter 
under discussion is presumably new to the class, but 
even more in review lessons where the topics have been 
previously discussed and explained in class, is teaching 
through the pupils a most valuable aid to progress. 

For example, instead of merely assigning a certain 
topic for review at home to be tested by the teacher's 
questions on the following day, let the teacher request 
each pupil to write out and bring in five or ten questions 
suitable for the review that is planned. Further, let it be 
understood that each pupil who proposes a question to 
his classmates stands ready to supply, whenever neces- 
sary, the correct answer himself. Working at the black- 
board, the teacher calls on a pupil to read his best ques- 



254 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

tion. The pupil reads his question and may be called 
upon to explain, without answering it, why it is a good 
question. Class criticism may be invited for a moment 
and the class may even be asked quickly to vote by 
a show of hands whether the question is acceptable. If, 
with the teacher's approval, the question is accepted, 
it may be written on the board for all to check off on 
their own lists, or to copy down if they have not brought 
it in themselves. 

Then the question may be put to a pupil of his own 
selection by the boy who brought it in — passing the 
question from boy to boy until an answer is secured 
that meets the questioner's entire approval. Other boys 
who had prepared the same question and answer may 
be called upon if necessary to bring out a more perfect 
exposition. 

So it may go throughout most of the recitation or 
review — the pupils, aided by the teacher's censorship, 
proposing and answering their own questions. 

Even for a written review, the pupils may hand in 
a set of proposed examination questions from which the 
teacher may select those for the day's review, adding to 
them or revising them, usually with a word of expla- 
nation, as the necessities suggest. Thus the final ques- 
tions as they appear on the blackboard may be largely, 
if not wholly, the pupils' own creation — not a task set 
by the teacher, but a test set by the pupils themselves. 

By this very method of selection the class becomes 
more eager to hand in creditable answers — the pre- 
sumption of reasonableness being to the class inherent 
in a set of questions which the class itself proposes. The 
attitude of antagonism to the teacher's alleged lack of 
sympathy or understanding in setting the test is largely 
changed to one of willing cooperation in the effort to 






THE SOCIALIZED RECITATION 255 

secure good results for the class that has set its own ex- 
amination. 

Added to the new spirit of willing cooperation, comes 
an increasingly better ability on the part of the pupils 
to ask good questions and to answer them. As in Chap- 
ter XIII we saw that a recognition of relative values is 
studying, we see here how through the "socialized" ques- 
tion paper the pupils are trained to pick out by themselves 
the essentials that are worthy of being made the sub- 
ject of questions on their class tests. Indeed some may 
go so far as to say that the questions that a pupil pro- 
poses as proper ones for a class review test are a better 
test of that pupil's fitness to progress than would be his 
answers to the teacher's questions. However, we need 
not go so far as that, to be convinced that good pupil- 
questioning is a very potent help in class room teaching. 
We must, however, be willing to admit that in so far 
as we have failed to encourage and to train our pupils to 
propose good questions, we have failed to make use of 
a very valuable aid to the teaching of our specialty. 

As we experiment with giving our pupils a chance 
to teach each other, under our guidance, we will become 
more and more convinced that the bug-bear of slow 
progress is not as terrible as it at first appeared. Even 
if as a result we actually cover less ground, we find that 
at least the ground we do cover is unquestionably more 
secure. 

In some subjects we may find it worth while to have 
a pupil chairman quite regularly for our class work, but 
the elaborate paraphernalia of a socialized recitation is 
not necessary for the success of our idea. The show reci- 
tation may never be staged in our class room, yet if we 
grasp the newer point of view our pupils are bound to 
be benefited. 



256 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

Were we to try to give in a single sentence the es- 
sence of our newer conception of the teacher's class room 
creed it might be stated in these words: 

It is my firm conviction that each pupil in my 
various classes has an unquestionable right and, 
equally, an unavoidable obligation to contribute 
everything within his power toward the education 
of his classmates. 

If teacher and pupils accept this point of view they 
may find that in so far as they are able to help others, 
they are themselves helped most of all. They may find 
at the end that they not only experienced happiness in 
doing what was once a hateful task, but that each one has 
gained for himself something quite impossible had he 
worked selfishly, simply for himself alone. This is, I 
take it, the essence of good class management for all con- 
cerned. 

In the best conducted socialized recitation we may 
find — indeed we must find, if it is to be the best — many 
other factors besides pupil participation from a social 
motive. 

We cannot have a really successful socialized recita- 
tion unless all our pupils know fairly well why they are 
studying our subject at all. This we discussed in our 
chapter on General Method. 

Again our pupils must have a rather good idea of 
just what is the chief purpose of the particular lesson at 
hand — and this means an ability to study the subject of 
the lesson at home alone — in advance of our recitation. 
Finally for the subject of our combined study in the 
class room, we must have a project or a problem that ap- 
peals to our pupils as something of interest to them- 
selves largely uninfluenced by our participation as their 
teacher. 



THE SOCIALIZED RECITATION 257 

All this requires, if we are to have socialized recitations 
of this best type, that we must have a wide knowledge 
both of our subject and our pupils, that we must have a 
worthy purpose for each recitation, that we must have 
used unusual skill in assigning the lesson in question, that 
we must have a remarkable amount of tact in keeping our 
ideas prominent, but our person inconspicuous, and, 
finally, that we always have to a remarkable degree both 
patience and faith to keep us striving for success in the 
face of failure and discouragement. 

In this socialized recitation it is often the little thing 
that makes or mars the lesson. The impatient interjec- 
tion by the teacher of a curt word or two may chill the 
class to silence. Sarcasm kills the social purpose all too 
frequently. So little a thing as the seating arrangement 
of the class may strengthen or destroy the social motive 
of class work. The usual military and unchanging 
arrangement of desks and seats, the teacher's desk in 
front, actually makes cooperative work more difficult. 
Let one who doubts this, meet his class for a single 
period weekly in a room where the pupils may either 
gather in a circle about the teacher or seat themselves as 
committee groups about separate tables. The change in 
the pupils' attitude as a result of this apparently insig- 
nificant modification is truly astonishing. Even the 
school-room furniture (to say nothing of school-room dec- 
oration) seems to have an effect upon the pupils' class- 
room spirit that many of us may have never imagined. 
All in all, the genuine socialized recitation is the 
most * difficult goal any teacher may set for himself 
— and yet a goal so worthy that all who work with and 

* A brief analysis of some of the things a teacher must be and 
do in order to conduct a thoroughgoing socialized recitation may 
help us to appreciate this statement. 



258 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

for children must keep striving with this goal forever 
in view. 

(a) He must have a wide knowledge of other fields than his 

own. 

(b) He must propose a worthy and an acceptable purpose for 

each recitation. 

(c) He must plan his problems at least six months Jn advance 

so they may be integral parts of a progressive whole. 

(d) He must prepare each day's lesson to join it up to present 

interests as well as to past ones. 

(e) He must have most unusual skill in making daily assign- 

ments. 

(f) He must lead by cooperation and not by giving orders. 

(g) He must have tact first, tact last and tact always, 
(h) He must talk little, but most effectively. 

(i) He must have patience, supported by an abiding faith in 
the value of the truly socialized recitation. 

QUESTIONS 

1. Why has the college lecture method of instruction invaded 

our modern high schools? 

2. What remarkable disclosure of time allotment within a 

lesson have recent investigations disclosed? 

3. How do adults do business in their voluntary associations? 

4. What objections are voiced to using this same plan in the 

junior high school? 

5. How may I follow a middle course between the lecture 

method and the method which puts the pupil in com- 
mand? 

6. What social purpose may I hope my pupils will acquire if 

properly guided? 

7. How may the over-impulsive and over-helpful pupil be 

curbed ? 

8. What may make amends for the slower progress of the 

recitation that is built up of pupil contributions? 

9. What social plan would I propose for review lessons? 

10. What devices can I suggest that may make the realization 

of the social purpose of the class work more successful? 

11. How does the genuine socialized recitation sum up the best 

in all class room teaching? 



J 



CHAPTER XVI 

FIELD WORK IN ALL JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 
SUBJECTS 

Part I 
VALUE OF FIELD WORK 

In most of our larger American cities the housing prob- 
lem has been a most acute one during the last few years. 
The cost of materials and of skilled labor have been 
so tremendously in advance of pre-war rates that few 
buildings have been constructed. Our school construction 
has suffered no less than other public and private build- 
ing enterprises and in many neighborhoods the increase 
in school population has been decidedly greater than the 
number of new sittings provided for the children. 

As a result the educational authorities in many cities 
have been obliged to sanction a plan by which two school 
classes were obliged to be content with the use of a single 
school room, the actual class room instruction of each 
group being limited to considerably less than the normal 
five hour period of a full school day. 

In New York City perhaps more than in any other 
single city, the inadequacy of school sittings has re- 
cently forced the introduction of some part-time plan 
upon more and more of the high school population. 

Hardly a secondary school in all Greater New York 
was able to furnish seats and desks for all its entering 
pupils, Speyer Experimental Junior High School suffering 
with the others. The problem was more acute at Speyer 

259 



260 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

School because in a school where the brighter pupils were 
to be allowed to do the three junior high school years in 
two, every moment of the school day was of unusual 
value. 

It was this problem placed squarely before the teachers 
and pupils of Speyer School that led to a new type of 
work that seems to have proved itself of sufficient value 
to warrant more or less general adoption. 

The considerations that led us to the new type of work 
were two-fold. First was the over-crowded school build- 
ing that we have discussed, which forbade our meeting 
all our pupils for a full school day. The second was a 
consideration that in no wise was influenced by the over- 
crowded school, but rather by a desire to work out by 
experiment a solution to another problem quite as se- 
rious, but wholly distinct from that first described. This 
second consideration was the unfortunate separation be- 
tween school work and real work so undeniable in the ma- 
jority of our conventional American public schools. 

Undoubtedly, the separation of school work and real 
work had its beginning in the desire to make intellectual 
progress more rapid by concentrating upon what it con- 
sidered the essentials. In adult life a man may take ten 
years in business to learn what he might teach another in 
one year if he were freed from any other business obli- 
gations while doing so. As a helper in a dye works, or a 
paper mill, a man may learn less about the "how" and 
the "why" of the various manufacturing processes in an 
entire year than a college student would learn in an hour 
of concentrated study. 

The result in centuries of curriculum building has been 
to concentrate often in a month's work information that 
it took a generation or more to work out for itself in the 
field. More and more the desire to give in school the 



FIELD WORK IN ALL SUBJECTS 261 

essentials only, has led to the study of theories and proc- 
esses as separated from their actual application in the 
world of men at work until finally we may have arrived at 
such a degree of separation in certain subjects of study 
that the things we learn at school seem to have absolutely 
no connection with the things that are done outside the 
school building. 

Students of the philosophy of education have often 
bewailed this, serious separation between the world of 
work and the world of study. The children and even men 
and women who are pursuing their higher education have, 
in many communities, come to be regarded as a cloistered 
group, separate from the world of action and accom- 
plishment, studying unreal things, academic theories, 
pursuing a sort of mental gymnastics, that might possibly 
be of service later, but that were in themselves largely 
trivialities or unrealities when contrasted with the serious 
and real occupations of the world at work. 

These students have asked if it were not possible that 
in our anxiety to make for mental advancement we have 
reached, or even passed, the saturation point and that in 
our endeavor to spare our pupils the delays inseparable 
from learning through actual experience in the field, we 
have passed the point where theory, separated from prac- 
tice, is of genuine value. Is it not possible, they ask, that 
we could give our pupils a better education if we took 
them a shorter distance, perhaps, into the realms of theory 
and used the time thus saved to give a less narrowly 
selected experience through experiments in actual field 
work? 

To be sure, they will admit, there is little to be gained 
in field work that the super-student may not find written 
out, in the main, in the text-books or treatises of some 
publisher. Nevertheless, there may be a great deal 



262 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

that the school boy or girl might learn through practice 
that it would be impossible for the average pupil to gain 
from a printed page, even were it open before him. 

Is it not then, they ask, possible for us in school to 
begin a "Back to Business" movement that will counter- 
act the deadening effect of too much theory, studied too 
often, apparently, by and for itself. 

As we have repeatedly noted, our adolescent children 
are, in general, inclined to look upon their school work 
as something so theoretical and impractical as to be of 
decidedly doubtful value to them after they have left 
school. 

Possibly no one thing has contributed so much to 
this belief as has the child's idea that what he learns 
in the class room is valuable only there. Though in 
a large city, thousands may be studying and utilizing 
for their work or recreation the principles which he is 
studying at school, still the pupil never sees these ma- 
ture students, nor can he from his limited home environ- 
ment, gain any genuine impression of the nature or the 
demands of the work which these others follow. 

The idea of genuine field work in which the pupils 
not only observe others gaining their livelihood, or in- 
creasing their happiness by the utilization of school 
theories, is so new that it as yet has received scarcely 
any serious consideration in the public schools of this 
country. Yet in some schools a beginning, at least, 
has been made and the results appear to justify the ex- 
tra labor such a plan entails. 

For years teachers of natural science have been plan- 
ning excursions in after-school time, or on holidays, so 
that the pupils might observe in the field, or in the fac- 
tory, the natural or manufactured objects about which 
they have been studying. Yet, in the main, even teachers 



FIELD WORK IN ALL SUBJECTS 263 

of science have preferred to bring in specimens or to 
perform class room experiments that would give the in- 
formation they sought to impart. No one who under- 
stands the demands of natural science will fail to recog- 
nize the value of class laboratory work, but students 
of this problem have begun to see that better results may 
be obtained where school room work is supplemented by 
equally serious field work entirely outside the school 
building. To a certain extent the so-called Gary School 
Plan attempted in theory to give a type of field work 
in all branches when it regularly assigned its younger 
pupils to watch the varied class work of the more ad- 
vanced students for certain periods each week. The idea 
here was, in part at least, that the younger pupils might 
see the older pupils actually employing in their daily 
tasks the skill and information which they, the younger, 
were just now endeavoring to acquire in their own daily 
class work. 

Valuable as such observation, if properly directed and 
supervised, may be, it has little except convenience to 
commend it in comparison with a plan which chooses for 
observation outside-activities in which men and women 
are actually at work earning their bread and butter. 

In any city, and especially in a larger city, the 
school opportunities for field work that are usually neg- 
lected, or ignored, are simply enormous. The opportuni- 
ties for observing work that is helpful in making more real 
the studies of the junior high school may be better in 
New York than in many other cities and towns. However, 
there is scarcely a village in America (that is large enough 
to support a junior high school) that does not furnish in 
its activities opportunity for showing the application of 
the child's school-taught theories to practical adult work. 
Indeed the village may, through its more intimate per- 



264 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

sonal acquaintance, offer opportunities often forbidden 
in a city. 

Returning to our Speyer School problem we found that 
many of our pupils could be housed in the school building 
scarcely more than half of the time needed for their school 
work, though all were sadly in need of instruction for the 
full school day. At the same time, we found pupils forced 
to concentrate upon the study of text-book theories to 
an extent that made the proper joining up of theory and 
practice often an impossibility. 

The solution of both difficulties appeared to be one 
and the same — assigning class-room work under class 
teachers to periods of work wholly outside the school 
building. As an experiment, we tried to conduct a full 
school day with the pupils who were only half a day in 
school. Two years of successful experimentation have led 
us to incorporate field-work — work outside the school 
building — as a required part of some of the regular 
weekly program of all classes, regardless of the seating 
conditions. 

It will, however, be useless for us to insist that our 
loss of school time was always and invariably counter- 
balanced by an increase in school interest and applica- 
tion to school work. Whether or not the field-work is 
worth while depends, when all is said and done, less upon 
the field to which the excursion is made than it does upon 
the intelligence and skill of the teacher who conducts 
the excursion. Field-trips are not, experience seems to 
show, wholly valuable in themselves as it is quite pos- 
sible for a class to visit an open treasure trove and re- 
turn empty handed. Of this more may be said later, but 
it is well to have in mind that the essential prerequisite 
for any class excursion is a teacher who will use the ex- 
cursion time to teach a definitely prepared lesson, if not 



FIELD WORK IN ALL SUBJECTS 265 

by word of mouth, then at least through objects or expe- 
riences which his foresight and careful, advance plans 
alone will make significant to his pupils. 

Some one may object that we have belittled the neces- 
sity of having enough worth-while places to visit and that 
though these field trips may be well enough for New York 
children who have the unusual opportunities of a 
great city and the carfare to spend in utilizing them, 
yet such a plan would be of little value in a village or 
small city which might be, nevertheless, capable of sup- 
porting with profit a junior high school. 

To be sure, the wonderful world-wide collections of 
art and of natural science in the Metropolitan Museum, 
the Museum of Natural History, the Aquarium, the Zoo- 
logical Gardens, may be more or less peculiar to New 
York, but we shall endeavor to show that neglected 
opportunities far in excess of their possible use lie just 
outside the doors of even the village school. It will be, 
not New York, but the average American town that we 
shall have in mind in outlining the possibilities of field 
work in all subjects. Before the close of our chapter we 
may also discuss the difficulties that usually accompany 
field work where the objective material is too abundant. 

On the biological side of general science there is no 
doubt that the possibilities are great ; almost any vacant 
lot may be surveyed for its plant'and animal life and may 
furnish evidences of the struggle for existence, adaptation 
to environment, seed dispersal, protective coloring and 
special devices for self protection or for propagating 
the species. 

Agassiz is reported to have been able to teach the 
whole animal kingdom from the study of a shell, but 
it takes a highly trained zoologist to make such a pro- 
posal. To the extent that a teacher is himself inventive, 



266 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

well informed and forehanded, can the smaller things 
one sees in a vacant lot be made significant. Trips to 
the woods and fields need no defense in their possibilities 
for the teaching of botany and zoology, but it takes 
a trained teacher to see the possibilities in common 
things. For a New York City example, almost every 
back yard has growing in it a scraggly bush, shrub, or 
tree, that the botanist knows as Ailanthus. A whole 
course in botany, interesting, practical botany, lies in 
every such plant — the commonest tree in New York 
City. The history of the importation of the Ailanthus 
from China — where it is known as "The Tree of 
Heaven" — to Flushing, L. L, for decorative purposes a 
century ago, how it escaped from captivity in an arbore- 
tum by its winged seeds, how it throve because it had no 
enemies in America, having left the insects that fed upon 
it in China thousands of miles away, how it provides 
strong, healthy seeds by separation of the sexes in differ- 
ent trees, how pollination is unusually well provided for, 
how by making a super-normal effort for its first few 
years it grows like a weed and takes foot-hold where an 
elm, a maple, or an oak would be trampled down, how 
later it settles down to the slower work of trunk and 
branch strengthening, how it protects itself from wind 
and ice and snow, how it blossoms, how it spreads its spe- 
cies — all this and more can be unfolded from the study 
of New York's commonest weed-tree, the Ailanthus. 

So in each locality there may be unfolded from the 
commonest and meanest things science stories that inter- 
est and educate the children in the world of science. 

On the physical and chemical side of general science 
the school building furnishes opportunities for many in- 
vestigations. The school building has running water; 
where does it come from, how is it brought to the school, 



FIELD WORK IN ALL SUBJECTS 267 

how even is its flow controlled in the aqueduct, in the 
mains, in the faucets at the sink. All this involves the 
study and appreciation of scientific principles if the work 
be rightly done. The school heating apparatus and its 
passing of the latent energy of coal to the warmed air of 
the class room, is duplicated more or less in every home 
and abounds in teaching-possibilities, if only the teacher 
is capable of using the material so close at hand. 

The town's lighting plant, its plan of sewage disposal, 
its transportation facilities, are all problems of scientific 
engineering that may furnish laboratory exercises second 
to none, if the teacher knows how to use his materials of 
instruction. 

Natural Science, even in a large settled city like New 
York, presents opportunities that are simply overwhelm- 
ing. To begin with there is the heating and ventilating 
system of the school itself, its water supply, its gas supply, 
even its sewerage to furnish scientific problems. The 
wonderful collections of living animals and plants in the 
Zoological and Botanical Gardens will serve for many 
excursions. In the winter there is the never-exhausted 
Museum of Natural History with material for a hundred 
valuable excursions. The uncultivated hills of the Pal- 
isades just across the Hudson give opportunity for field 
work such as the country school affords, while neighbor- 
ing market gardens and public markets bring the farm 
almost to the city school door. The difficulty in science 
is always to decide wisely which one of the five or ten 
possible and similarly attractive excursions offers the 
best opportunity for pupil improvement. 

In excursion work the study of natural science, because 
of its unequalled opportunities and marked success, blazes 
the trail which the other subjects will soon follow in 
taking the school pupil outside the class room for school 



268 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

work that is fully as important and serious as any in the 
recitation room. 

Mathematics may seem a very difficult subject to study 
in the field, but when we consider arithmetic, algebra, or 
geometry, as the "how much" or "how far" of every scien- 
tific or business undertaking, we gain some idea of its 
possibilities. Visit the grocer, the butcher, the dry-goods 
store, and after pricing the goods, attempt to compute 
how the price is fixed. The raw material, the manufac- 
turing process, the cost of transportation, the overhead 
charges of rent and salaries in the retail store, all must 
be figured in and made a part of a series of computations 
that not only requires plenty of figuring, but an appreci- 
ation of business methods that is itself educational. 

Visits to a local bank will allow the pupils to observe 
the various employees at work and to learn their duties, 
so making the real need for accuracy in calculating as 
well as giving a genuine first hand conception of the 
nature and operation of a bank service to the community. 
A safe deposit vault, if visited, will give interest and 
reality to the study of deeds, mortgages and bonds. 

Modern instruments of rapid calculation — adding ma- 
chines, comptometers, slide rules, etc., may be observed 
at work or in the stores where they are sold. Instruments 
of mathemetical precision — gauges, micrometers, weights 
and measures used in exact calculations — may also be 
observed and explained. 

All the more common machines used in modern steel 
construction may be observed at work and shown, in cases 
selected for illustration, to have a mathematical basis. 

Somewhere in town there is a new building going up; 
its cost problems can be made ours too, but we can also 
calculate angles and distances between its supporting 
beams. More advanced classes may even consider the 



FIELD WORK IN ALL SUBJECTS 269 

strength of building materials, and matters of stress and 
strain in local bridges may be studied in class from 
material gathered in field observations. 

The time, labor, material and cost of paving or asphalt- 
ing a street or making an excavation for a public building, 
give projects for field work in mathematics that may last 
a semester. Such work, well done, surpasses in value 
similar work done in the class room only. 

English field work may involve a study of the local 
newspaper. The children may learn how news is gath- 
ered, how it is written up, how the copy is prepared for the 
typesetter. Later they may see the news actually being 
set up by hand, or on a linotype machine. Then the 
galley proof, or trial sheets, may be examined for cor- 
rections until the form is locked and the paper is on the 
press. This is writing that parents pay to read — not 
literature, perhaps, but English composition beyond a 
doubt. 

In Written English a visit to the postofnce to observe 
the collecting, sorting, packing, or unpacking, of letters 
and distributing them will give an added interest to let- 
ter writing. The libraries and musuems will provide 
opportunities to observe the actual letters and manu- 
scripts of prominent men (with, it must be confessed, no 
great improvement in school penmanship) . The libraries 
will also furnish collections in book form of the letters 
of noted writers and autobiographies which are in effect 
open letters from the author's own hand. Indeed all the 
excursions, in whatever subject taken, will furnish ideas 
and facts for the pupils to write about. The cooperative 
teacher of English will find more difficulty in limiting the 
range of selection than in providing subjects upon which 
the pupils will be eager to write letters to their friends. 

Literature may be studied by entire classes at the 



270 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

library where all the works of the author under dis- 
cussion may be seen, the books actually handled and their 
titles read and copied down. Illustrations not found in 
school editions may be looked up to make the story more 
real. 

In English Literature, while studying Ivanhoe, a visit 
to a museum may make real the suits of armor, coats of 
mail and tournament lances, while the tapestries and 
needlework of the women of that period may also be 
studied. The Lays of Ancient Rome may find, in the 
musuem, Roman antiquities to give an added interest. 
Cooper's novels may be supplemented by visits to various 
Indian collections and to the collections of household 
goods of early colonial days at various historic homes 
that may be open to the public. 

By special arrangement with the local motion picture 
house still more can be accomplished. Many of the better 
known English classics may now be had in film form. 
Picture houses, usually closed in the morning, are usually 
only too glad to open for school children for even a five- 
cent admission if the groups be large enough, especially 
if the same film will be patronized by the adults of the 
community in the afternoon and evening. The morn- 
ing performance is usually "velvet" to the average motion 
picture house. The films are on hand, and rental is paid 
for the day; there is no need for ushers at a school per- 
formance. The operator is on salary and may be put 
to work. So the school performance at ten in the morning 
is clear profit and the admission fee can drop accordingly. 

For example, during the past semester some classes have 
seen on the screen in school time — Treasure Island, 
Huckleberry Finn, Evangeline, The Copperhead, The 
Vicar of Wakefield, Dombey and Son, The Courtship of 
Miles Standish, A Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and 
Webster's Daddy Long Legs. 






FIELD WORK IN ALL SUBJECTS 271 

In Oral English the opportunities, especially before the 
November elections, to observe public speakers at work 
will not be overlooked and pupils will attend, so far as 
possible, the gatherings where men of national repute 
address the public. Sessions of the local legislative body 
— the Board of Aldermen in New York — will give oppor- 
tunity to see parliamentary practice as well as to observe 
the effect of spoken argument on its hearers. 

The Social Studies may take the pupils afield for the 
study of local landmarks and their histories. If there 
is no local historical museum there usually are still one 
or more homes that will, if visited by permission, bring 
out for examination antiques or memorabilia sf real his- 
toric value. The study of the village sites is a study 
in history making. What once stood where the post-office 
stands? What building was on that site before the post- 
office, of whose town lot was it once a part? On whose 
farm did the village spring up, or around what trade 
route was it first established? What geographical ad- 
vantages led the first immigrants to settle here rather 
than at some neighboring location? Do these same ad- 
vantages still remain? All this may, of course, be gotten 
from books, but from books alone, it lacks the significance 
and the educative value that comes from seeing the very 
spots themselves and walking over the historic trails. 

The local law-makers, or courts, may meet infre- 
quently, but when they do, there is no better place to 
study government as it is administered than in such meet- 
ings, open as they must be to the public. Children who 
see and hear a local ordinance in the making may be 
led to a better idea of their own and their parents' re- 
sponsibility at election time. Children who witness part 
of a carefully selected court trial have a greater respect 
for law and for those who are charged with its enforce- 



272 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

ment. All the local agencies for local protection, the 
police station, the fire-house, the lighting plant, may 
serve as objective material in community civics. Even 
the local jail may teach at times without degrading. 

But as in every excursion in every subject, the pupils' 
index of success in field trips in Social Studies will depend 
almost wholly upon his instructor's clear pre-vision of the 
situations in the field; his teacher must each time have 
an aim that is definite, worthy and possible of accom- 
plishment or the trip is useless. 

The correlations are infinite. The General Introduc- 
tory Social Science of the eighth school year, consisting of 
a study of primitive and of ancient peoples, their mode 
of life and of government, finds contact with the English 
literature and oral English, mathematics, natural science 
and art in the field trips that may be planned. 

Taking English literature as an example, the History 
of Greece and Rome correlate with Homer's Odyssey and 
Macauley's Lays of Ancient Rome. A study of Indian 
tribes and customs is more interesting when made in con- 
nection with the reading in English literature of Coop- 
er's novels. Scott's Ivanhoe and The Talisman make 
more real the European history of the middle ages with its 
feudal government and correlate also with art excursions 
to study Norman Architecture, or mediaeval armor. 

So on the excursions in English literature to the motion 
picture house, or to the library, or in the art excursions 
to the musuem, it is possible to emphasize the Social 
Science side by calling attention to the historical evo- 
lution of the social or the material setting of the partic- 
ular story that is being studied. 

In Community Civics — a part of our Introductory 
Social Science — the connection between social and nat- 
ural science is most marked. The way people manage 



FIELD WORK IN ALL SUBJECTS 273 

to live with comfort and health in large cities is found 
to be largely a matter of physical, chemical and bio- 
logical science. 

The water supply, garbage and sewerage disposal, 
gas making and distribution, electric light and power ser- 
vice, supervision of foods and their distribution, street 
cleaning, house-cleaning, control of contagion, etc., etc., 
are all matters of civics in so far as the people of a com- 
munity must make legal and financial provision for the 
initial expenses of this service for its maintenance, but 
this service depends upon natural science as to the man- 
ner in which the service is actually accomplished. There- 
fore excursions in natural science may be combined with 
field work in civics with good results. 

In Manual Art not only may the Art Museum's collec- 
tions of paintings and statuary be observed in part, but, 
equally, beauty of design in needlework, pottery and the 
rarer metals may be studied and explained. Buildings, 
both public and private, may be studied for their architec- 
ture and not only may the conventional Greek types be 
recognized, but equally the medieval and the modern. 

Early colonial design may be noted in period furniture 
as shown in the collections, either public or private, where 
the pupils may learn to recognize and, in part, to appre- 
ciate the types of furniture so earnestly sought by the 
collector of antiques. 

Commercial design must not be overlooked, but the 
process as well as the product of designs for printed cloth, 
wall paper, and figured weaves may be observed and ex- 
plained. Even the local dry-goods store may serve for an 
art excursion. 

In art as in science the opportunities presented exceed 
the possibility of exhausting them, though in art the 
demands upon the kind indulgence of the private owner 



274 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

may make such field work more difficult unless a class 
be unusually well disposed. On the contrary, however, 
most collectors of objects of art are only too willing to 
exhibit them if only they become convinced that those to 
whom the treasures are displayed are seriously anxious 
to develop a genuine art appreciation. 

In Music, where expense seems to forbid field work, 
the nearest approach to field work seems to be through 
such concerts as may be arranged upon the phonograph. 
Records, loaned by the pupils, parents and teachers, make 
it possible to reproduce at one time almost an entire 
opera while the instructor explains the story which the 
composer tells. I have seen the skillful teacher of music 
hold the entire attention for an hour or more of over a 
hundred pupils to the operas of Aida, Faust, II Trovatore, 
Cavalleria Rusticana, Rigoletto, La Tosca, Pagliacci and 
Lucia di Lammermoor. That such modified field work 
is truly effective no one that has seen it can possibly 
doubt. 

PART II 
PRACTICAL DETAILS OF FIELD STUDY 

While almost any student of education who is not a 
teacher may now be convinced that theoretically field 
work is a most valuable adjunct to class-room work, many 
class-room teachers may still be inclined to believe that 
the practical difficulties such a plan would be sure to en- 
counter might easily be sufficient to make it impossible, 
whatever be its theoretical value. 

Certain practical objections, especially those of (1) 
Time (distance), (2) Money, (3) Discipline and (4) 
Distractions, may seem to offer insurmountable barriers 
to any general adoption of the Field Work Plan in the 
average junior high school. 



PRACTICAL DETAILS OF FIELD STUDY 275 

To those who feel able to settle these problems sat- 
isfactorily in their own way the following detailed ac- 
count will be of interest only as the story of how one 
school avoided some of the genuine difficulties it first met 
with. 

I. Time 

In the first place, if field work is to be made a serious 
part of school work, we have shown that it must come in 
school hours. It is unfair to ask a class to give its entire 
school-day afternoon, or holiday morning, to a required 
and compulsory school task. The time allotted each sub- 
ject for either class-room recitation or home study is 
fixed and definite. The teacher who arranges a field 
trip in after-school time that really belongs in whole or 
in part to the home study of other subjects, harms the 
work of the school even though he may help for the time 
his own subject. 

Several plans have been worked out by which pupils 
can take their field work in school time without interfer- 
ing with other school work. Each of these plans places 
an added burden upon the shoulders of the program 
maker and yet not so great a one as to be impossible of 
satisfactory adjustment in the hands of an expert. 

Let us suppose that the subject in which the field 
work is to be undertaken comes regularly five times 
a week. It may be desirable to have a field excursion 
weekly as in general science, bi-weekly as in community 
civics, or monthly as in mathematics. 

The average excursion, if it is to be worth while, can 
scarcely take less than two, or more than three, periods 
of school time. On the»basis of a forty-five minute period 
this would give from one and a half to two and a quarter 
hours for the excursion as a whole. Taking the shorter 



276 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

allowance as our limit, this may not unfairly be supple- 
mented by such little before or after school time as may 
be necessary to reach; or to return from, the place to be 
visited. 

For the day on which the excursion in any subject is 
to take place the subject in question is assigned in ad- 
vance, the two opening or the two closing periods of 
school. 

The pupils preferably leave the school building at the 
close of the first afternoon period — at 1 : 30 or 1 : 45 p. m., 
as the custom may be, and proceed to the place of their 
field work — half an hour's walk, or ride. From half to 
three quarters of an hour may be spent in observation 
and note taking, after which the class may return as a 
whole to their school for dismissal or may be dismissed 
at once when the object of their observation is covered, 
to return home as individuals. 

With older classes already trained in the mechanics of 
field-work, the first two periods of the day may be used 
when it is possible for the pupils to go from home directly 
to the place of meeting. After one period of observation 
the class returns as a body to the school, in time for the 
opening of its third daily period. 

II. Money 

Of course where the object of the field trip is found 
within reasonable walking distance of half an hour or 
so the question of money does not appear as a difficulty 
to be overcome. While pupils who are physically handi- 
capped, or who live at a great distance from the school, 
may be permitted to ride, the rule that if one walks all 
walk has been found most satisfactory. 

In a large city, however, there will be field trips that 



PRACTICAL DETAILS OF FIELD STUDY 277 

will unavoidably require car fare if the trip is to be 
finished in its allotted two periods. 

The time may come when the cost of excursions will 
be covered by grants of school money, for it is no more 
unreasonable to spend money to carry pupils to the things 
they are to observe than, as now, to spend money to 
bring things to be observed into our class room. 

In the annual budget of most high schools an allowance 
is made for the purchase of illustrative material, pictures, 
charts, globes, reference or library books, laboratory 
material, etc., part of which might properly be applied 
to the expenses of a series of excursions where the same, 
or better, results would be secured by taking the class 
from the school to the objects to be observed. 

However, in an experience covering several years no 
parent has been found who was unwilling to contribute the 
necessary car fare when the object of the excursion was at 
a distance, although it was necessary to take definite 
steps at the start to convert the parents to the excur- 
sion idea. To that end a circular letter was printed, 
addressed to the pupils' parents explaining the nature and 
purpose of the proposed field work. It was made plain 
that these excursons were not picnics, or amusement 
periods, but had a definite educative purpose. It was 
further explained that these trips would not be taken if, 
in the belief of the school, the time could be better em- 
ployed in the class room. It was carefully explained that 
the trips were planned solely because, through the excur- 
sions, the pupils would receive a better education than 
could possibly be provided without them. 

Finally, a printed request, addressed to the school 
principal, was sent to each parent to sign and return if 
he chose. These signed requests — renewed each semester 
— were kept on file as a safeguard. 



278 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

These requests were worded approximately as follows: 

I hereby request that my son be permitted to go 

in his school time on the regular weekly excursions of Speyer 
School pupils. 

I assume all responsibility for his safety and agree to furnish 
him with necessary car fare, not to exceed ten cents a week. 

(Signed) Parent or Guardian 
The result thus far has been 100% of requests. 



III. Discipline 

No difficulty has been found in permitting one teacher 
to supervise as many as thirty-six pupils on a field trip, 
though with a smaller party the work will, of course, be 
better supervised and probably more valuable to all who 
attend. 

At the outset there will usually be one or two pupils 
in each class who will at first fail to recognize the value 
of the excursion and so tend to upset the decorum and 
earnestness of the class. If such pupils fail to respond 
immediately to correction, it may be necessary to send 
them either to their homes, or under guard, to the school 
building. Until such pupils awaken to their opportuni- 
ties it may be necessary to exclude them (their parents 
being notified) from further field trips and to arrange 
instead that they use excursion time upon assigned work 
under supervision at the school. 

It is absolutely necessary that the group be well dis- 
posed, quiet, orderly and well mannered in order that the 
school may retain the privilege granted by the insti- 
tution, performance, or business concern which is being 
visited. With insignificant exceptions, the pupils of 
Speyer School have been permitted to visit collections, 



PRACTICAL DETAILS OF FIELD STUDY 279 

museums, libraries, city departments, parks, theatres, 
stores, markets, factories, buildings and plants under 
construction, wharves, transportation centers and many 
other places without the slightest unfavorable criticism 
from those who at first somewhat unwillingly granted 
the privileges of a visit. So far in the neighborhood of 
thirty thousand pupil visits in the aggregate have been 
made without any untoward incident having occurred. 
Such an experience will give faith that the difficulties of 
discipline are not insuperable. 

For the actual work of observation, Speyer pupils are 
divided into smaller groups of five or six pupils, one in 
each group being an especially trustworthy leader who 
is directly (under the teacher) charged with seeing that 
his group obeys the rules and secures the object of the ex- 
cursion. Such a plan gives the teacher an opportunity 
to separate possible mischief makers and to deal with 
six or seven groups instead of thirty or forty individuals. 
Moreover, the objects of interest are often such as to 
make observation by more than one small group at a 
time impossible. In such cases, the process of ob- 
servation is artificially separated into six or seven steps 
which the smaller groups observe in rotation, each group 
beginning and ending with a previously assigned step, 
the time allowance for each step being approximately 
the same. 

IV. Distractions 

Contrary to one's first thought, an abundance of ma- 
terial for field study on any one trip is far more a hind- 
rance than a help. 

One might think, for instance, that in New York City 
the Museum of Natural History would be one of the most 
wonderful places in the world for a field excursion in 



280 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

Science. The collections in zoology, in botany, in paleon- 
tology, in anthropology, minerology, if not the finest in 
the world and the best displayed, are probably rarely 
equalled in America. Not only the collections themselves, 
but their pictorial arrangement and display enable one to 
visit and to observe, with but little use of the imagination, 
the uttermost parts of the earth. 

What a gold mine of teaching material, one will be 
forced to exclaim! Yet with all this wealth of mate- 
rial on every hand a satisfactory teaching excursion to 
the Museum of Natural History is one of the most diffi- 
cult tasks imaginable. The class may enter the Museum 
with one single worthy query, but in an instant the main 
purpose of the excursion may be lost in a hundred queries 
that the wealth of material suggests to the pupil's mind. 
Unless controlled by an iron hand, the pupils who come 
to study, for example, fur-bearing animals, are full of 
questions about the meteorites, the Malay boatmen, the 
fossil birds, the Indian relics, the giant whale, the re- 
splendent crystalline ores, the wonderful plumes of still 
more wonderful birds and a host of other questions that 
are suggested by what children cannot help seeing as they 
move to their predetermined place of study. 

It is an almost superhuman task for the teacher in 
charge of thirty-six pupils to prevent, if not the pupils' 
bodies, at least their minds, from running riot amid such 
impelling distractions. The only solution for such a 
situation (and distractions are met with, in even the theo- 
retically most barren fields) lies in supplying each pupil 
with a purpose so definite, so distinct, so serious that it 
can withstand all the temptations to distraction, and this 
same preparation is required for every single worthy 
excursion, even for the excursion planned only to a vacant 
lot. 



PRACTICAL DETAILS OF FIELD STUDY 281 

In a school-room period of preparation the pupils work 
out for themselves, under guidance — what they want to 
observe — why they want to observe it — and where they 
may best go to get the results (information) they seek. 
This is done as an absolutely necessary prerequsite to any 
field trip. An added part of each pupil's preparation is 
a definite list of worthy questions worked out together 
in the preparatory period. These questions may be com- 
mon to all the class, or they may represent certain phases 
of the field to be covered by certain groups and later to be 
shared by all. 

Before the trip is ever actually begun each pupil has 
then a clear idea of what he is going to try to get. He 
has definite written questions asking for information 
which his excursion may supply only if he is truly diligent. 
In so far as may be necessary, added instruction may be 
given in advance as to the best ways to get the informa- 
tion the pupils 7 questions call for. 

Experience has shown that, other things being equal, 
the narrower and deeper the range of observations re- 
quired, the better the results that will be secured in any 
subject. When therefore in order to keep pupils from 
getting in each other's way, it becomes necessary for the 
class to work in small groups the better plan seems to 
be to select for each smaller "committee" a set of ques- 
tions whose answers may apparently have significance 
only when combined with the reports of other "commit- 
tees" when all meet, subsequent to the excursion, in a 
committee of the whole. Thus a social pressure is placed 
upon each pupil in addition to the motives that may urge 
the individual to stick to the task assigned despite dis- 
tractions. Following the excursion, the material gathered 
in the field is called for in the class room and there related 
and discussed until all have made their contributions and 



282 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

received the benefits of the combined findings of the class. 
Not merely interest in planning and assiduity in gather- 
ing, but rather the intelligence displayed in appreciating 
the significance of the facts or processes observed, is the 
final test of a successful field excursion. 

Enough has been said possibly to show that time, 
money and behavior are, after all, minor considerations 
as compared with the tremendous difficulties of distrac- 
tion as a barrier to satisfactory field work. However, 
with a carefully thought out advance plan expressed in 
definite written questions and, second, with a high degree 
of accountability required from each pupil in the class- 
room work that follows the field trip, experiment and ex- 
perience have shown that even the difficulties of distrac- 
tion may be, in most instances, successfully overcome. 

It may be that with better appreciation of the causes 
of failure, we may learn more and more to anticipate 
and so to avoid the difficulties that seem so often to 
prohibit successful field study in many subjects. 

From those who intelligently persevere in this work, 
there is bound to come sooner or later a contribution to 
education that may change the whole nature of our 
class room instruction a generation hence. A more imme- 
diate reward is that wholly worthy sense of congratulation 
that comes to the consecrated teacher whose greatest 
joy is found in the added pleasure and progress he brings 
to the boys and girls entrusted to his care. 



QUESTIONS 

1. How can field work in junior high school subjects be made 

to help in the housing situation? 

2. What are some of the reasons that have led to the separa- 

tion of school work and real work? 

3. What ill results have attended this separation? 



PRACTICAL DETAILS OF FIELD STUDY 283 

4. What was one merit of the Gary Plan and what improve- 

ment on this idea can you suggest? 

5. How may field work make school work more real? 

6. Why should not field work supplant all laboratory work? 

7. What opportunities does my own school neighborhood offer 

for field trips in General Science, English, Mathematics, 
Social Science, Art? 

8. What are the four chief difficulties in all field work? 

9. What is the one greatest difficulty and how may it be met? 
10. How would I outline a preparatory period for one ex- 
cursion in my specialty? 



CHAPTER XVII 

WRITTEN EXAMINATIONS AND RECOGNITION 
TESTS 

Ever since there have been modern schools for chil- 
dren of adolescent age there seem to have been written 
examinations which to a greater or lesser degree were 
used to predetermine each pupil's fitness to advance 
to a study of new and more difficult subjects. More 
especially in recent years there have also been students 
of education, parents and physicians who decried the use 
of the long written examination in school work. We have 
been told of cases of ill health, insomnia, nervous 
breakdown and even suicide, caused by the strain of 
preparing for final examinations which were intended 
to determine largely, if not wholly, a pupil's fitness for 
promotion. 

Students of the History of Education in other lands 
tell us of the civil service system in use for centuries in 
China where promotion in social rank and in opportuni- 
ties for higher types of civic service is made to depend 
upon the candidate's success in passing a series of three 
or four examinations set by the state. These examina- 
tions, we are told, are held usually once in three years 
— and last for three days at a stretch — deaths from 
physical and nervous exhaustion not being an infrequent 
accompaniment of these long written tests. 

Furthermore, opponents of written examinations tell 
us that there are many pupils who never can do them- 

.284 



EXAMINATIONS AND RECOGNITION TESTS 285 

selves justice in any written tests. Over-excitable and 
high-strung pupils are unsettled by nervous apprehension 
of possible failure and its accompanying disgrace be- 
fore their fellows. It is claimed that often the more 
able, intelligent and better informed pupils are ranked 
by the results of a long written examination as inferior 
to actually less able pupils whose very indifference to 
examination results puts them in a frame of mind more 
likely to secure favorable ratings in such trials of en- 
durance as well as of knowledge. 

Finally, there are those who maintain that our Ameri- 
can school written examinations, based as they are so fre- 
quently, if not universally, upon the pupil's ability to re- 
member facts, give an entirely wrong emphasis to the 
training of pupils in school. These critics maintain that 
the real test of any pupil's fitness to advance should be 
based upon a pupil's demonstrated ability to interpret and 
use facts rather than simply to remember them. Ques- 
tions to test interpretation, intellectual power, dynamic, 
rather than static, knowledge, are so much harder to 
correct that few of our school examinations are thus 
framed, but instead practically all our examination ques- 
tions test memory alone. As a result, it is claimed, the 
schools are led to place emphasis upon memory-knowl- 
edge rather than upon power-knowledge with a resulting 
deterioration in the educative process. 

So far we have regarded the examination evil only as 
it affects the pupil, but the teacher, far from being the 
lightest sufferer, is usually the hardest hit. No teacher 
gives examinations and corrects the papers for the fun 
of it, notwithstanding the pupils' belief. For most 
teachers the correction of long written examination pa- 
pers is about the hardest and the meanest work of the 
whole school year, especially since in most school sys- 



286 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

terns this work must be done at home in the time theo- 
retically allowed for rest and relaxation. There is no 
"double time" nor even "time and a half" for the teacher's 
overtime labors in the correction of examination papers. 

It will rarely take the most expert teacher less than 
five minutes to correct and grade a pupil's two or three 
hour examination. Given the smallest customary load 
of five classes of thirty pupils, we have not less than 
150 papers for one teacher's correction, or from 15 to 
25 hours at hard labor as the sentence of the conscientious 
teacher at promotion time. Principals and superinten- 
dents who, forgetful of their own earlier trials, set 
examinations of the old style for high school promo- 
tions impose a burden that may sap the teachers' vi- 
tality which might far better have been left them for 
their real work of instruction. 

The proponents of written examinations, while ad- 
mitting many of their opponents' contentions, base 
their chief reliance upon the inevitableness of the writ- 
ten test if any standards of education are to be main- 
tained. Had each teacher, they say, but three or four 
pupils, or even in some cases as many as ten pupils, it 
might be possible for one teacher to be so intimately 
acquainted with each pupil's individual attainments that 
no written tests would be necessary. However, where 
thirty or forty pupils are gathered in one room under 
one instructor, it becomes humanly impossible for any 
adult individual below the rank of genius to know surely 
the positive intellectual achievements of each pupil in 
the group. So the written test is introduced that all the 
pupils may attempt to answer at the same time certain 
basic questions as a measure of their school success. 

Even were there no further argument from the pro- 
ponents of written examinations we will find it well 



EXAMINATIONS AND RECOGNITION TESTS 287 

nigh impossible to escape the conviction that where pu- 
pils are gathered in classes for class instruction upon 
common subject-matter, some form of uniform written 
examinations are truly inevitable, if any standards of 
fitness for promotion are to be maintained. 

The proponents of written tests, however, go further 
and maintain that these written examinations are of 
value not only to the teacher in showing him what each 
pupil knows about the particular topic under examina- 
tion, but are no less valuable to each pupil in showing him 
what he knows (and, equally, what he does not know) 
about this particular topic. Teachers tell us that nothing 
short of a test where the answers are put down in writ- 
ing, subject to analysis and review, will be accepted by 
some pupils as evidence of imperfection of their own 
knowledge. Many a pupil wholly content in his own esti- 
mation of his perfect subject-knowledge, is first awakened 
to his real imperfections by re-reading his own examina- 
tion paper. We are all familiar, too, with the boy wlio 
"knows the answer, but cannot express it" and we all have 
labored to show this boy that until he can express himself 
correctly he has absolutely no real knowledge of the sub- 
ject under discussion. 

Further benefits claimed for examinations, especially 
those for promotion, are that these longer written tests 
require a pupil to make a rapid review, summing up as 
a preparation for the examination, the high spots of his 
term's work and that only by such a crucial test can the 
pupil be led to appreciate relative values in the work he 
has just completed. We all know the type of man who, 
we say, is unable to see the forest because he sees only the 
individual trees. In our schools, it is claimed that in- 
struction without the final written tests makes for just this 
type of mind, as in the boy who can get each fact from 



L 



288 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

day to day, but who cannot appreciate the subject be- 
cause his facts lack interrelation as parts of a unified 
whole. 

Our final conclusion as to the value and the necessity 
of written examinations is apt to lead us to decide that 
for the average boy in the average class of junior high 
school grade, examinations, properly conducted, are of 
greater value than harm and that, despite occasional in- 
dividual injstice, on the whole the examinations are the 
only way of fairly estimating the individual's proficiency 
when he is one of a group of thirty or forty others. 

So far we have been discussing examinations as if they 
were all pretty much alike as, on the whole, we know 
them to be, or to have been. Still, a moment's reflection 
will bring to our minds examinations that are widely 
different in character and purpose. Is it not possible that 
the examination may be correct in theory, but harmful 
in practice? Is it not possible that the faults are not 
inherent in an examination system, but in the specific 
examinations that are actually given to our pupils? 

In the junior high school we find the earliest school 
examinations that are considered truly significant. No 
one thinks of thus examining a group of little children 
in the second or third school year, but from the junior 
high school through the senior high school, college 
•and professional school, the "set" examination grows 
and thrives, increasing in importance and in terror until 
the law and medical schools cap the climax in the value 
attributed to long and difficult written tests. 

With the seventh school year, the pupil is introduced 
into a series of written tests that will continue so long 
as the boy remains a student — or, possibly for three 
years of the junior high school, three years in senior high 
school, four in college and three or four in professional 






EXAMINATIONS AND RECOGNITION TESTS 289 

school. For the boy who "cannot do well in examina- 
tions" the outlook is very dreadful — for more than a 
dozen years ahead examinations challenge his progress at 
every step. 

Since the junior high school has for its aim the pre- 
paring of its pupils to do better those desirable things 
they will do anyway, we must seriously consider the 
apparently inevitable examination system that a large 
fraction of our pupils may elect to pursue. Even though 
we may totally disbelieve in this examination system, 
we must not do anything that will weaken our pupil's 
chances of promotion along the path that convention has 
established. It is not a theory, but a condition that con- 
fronts us. Our pupils must be trained to pass examina- 
tions unless they all are to finish their formal education 
with our junior high school. 

As pioneers in education, bound less by convention 
than is any other type of school, it may be possible for 
us to devise ways and means of approaching the ex- 
amination system that will lessen its terrors, soften its 
hardships and increase its values to both pupil and 
teacher. If this is to be true, the new tests of general 
intelligence, the modified "army tests" which our fore- 
most American psychologists have devised, will point the 
way. 

Furthermore, if speed grouping, as previously dis- 
cussed, is to be a feature of our junior high school work, 
and few will debate its advisability, then we need to 
provide for frequent opportunities for re-grading of our 
pupils within each group. Instead of semi-annual, or 
even quarterly, tests, we may decide that we should 
have quarterly tests in each semester. 

In a school year of forty weeks divided into two terms, 
or semesters, of twenty weeks each, experiments seem 



290 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

to show that the longest period that should elapse between 
the promotions of homogeneously graded junior high 
school pupils is not far from five weeks. In the twenty 
weeks term this gives four stated periods, five weeks 
apart, when a taking of mental stock is required. More 
frequent review periods seem to interrupt the orderly 
forward progress of the school ; less frequent review peri- 
ods magnify disproportionately the labors of each review. 

Under the newer plan of more frequent promotions, 
we must make our tests' short, because our pupils are yet 
but beginners. Even though (in New York State) our 
third year pupils must prepare for a three-hour exami- 
nation covering a year's work in the first year high school 
subjects, we need not ourselves begin our written reviews 
with such cruelty to children. And again, because we 
are not at first compelled to meet these challenges of 
fitness to proceed, we need not wait until the school year 
is finished to set our review tests. 

For the first junior high school year we would pro- 
pose a time schedule of promotion from one homoge- 
neous speed group to another that would place these 
tests approximately five weeks apart — giving eight such 
review periods for the seventh school year. For this first 
junior high school year we would even propose no mid- 
term, or end-term, reviews that would cover more than 
five weeks' work. To a certain extent, of course, each 
test covers much of the work that has preceded, though 
studied more than five weeks before, but only, however, 
to the extent that such preceding work is a real factor 
in present progress. In other words, we would test fit- 
ness to advance, rather than ability to recall what one 
once knew, but which is not pertinent to the work at 
hand. 

For the second junior high school year we may con- 



EXAMINATIONS AND RECOGNITION TESTS 291 

tinue our five- week reviews, but at the middle and end 
of each semester we shall plan review tests that cover 
ten at first and later twenty weeks' work, thus increasing 
the review requirements in preparation for the more 
difficult examinations that lie still farther ahead. For 
the third junior high school year (the ninth school year) 
we must accept the compulsions of convention and pre- 
pare our pupils for tests that cover a year's work. This 
we can best do by a series of tests at mid-terms and at 
mid-year that cover to such extent as may be necessary 
all the subject-work that has preceded.* 

*If we have been able to follow this apparently complicated, 
but yet inherently simple, examination time table, we may have 
constructed a mental picture not very different from that shown 
by the following table: 



Order Period 




7th Year 




8th Year 


9th Year 


I Test 5th week 


5 


wk. review 


test 


5 wk. rev. 


test 


5 wk. 


rev. test 


II " 10th " 


5 


" " 


" 


10 " " 


" 


10 " 


" 


III " 15th " 


5 


" " 


" 


5 " " 


" 


5 " 


ii it 


IV " 20th " 


5 


" 


" 


10 " " 


" 


20 " 


" 


V " 20-25th " 


5 


., 


- 


5 " " 


- 


5 " 


... ,. 


VI " 25-30th " 


10 


<< it 


" 


10 " " 


" 


30 " 


<< << 


VII " 30-35th " 


5 


" " 


" 


5 " " 


" 


5 " 


" " 


VIII " 35-40th " 


10 






20 " " 




40 " 





For schools that have classes capable of covering the three 
years' work in two years of school time, we may have a time 
schedule somewhat like the following: 



Order 


Weeks 




7th School Year 


8th School Year 


I 


5 


5 weeks 


review test 


5 wks. 


review test 


II 


10 


5 


" 


(i <i 


10 " 


« ii 


III 


15 


5 


" 


<< n 


5 " 


" " 


IV 


20 


10 


" 


u 


20 " 




V 


25 


5 


- 


u 


5 " 


u 


VI 


30 


10 


" 


II (( 


30 " 


« M 


VII 


35 


5 


" 


(I (( 


5 " 


<« it 


VIII 


40 


20 


" 


<< << 


40 " 


<( << 



292 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

At once there will be aroused an intense opposition 
to such a frequent promotion period as one coming every 
five weeks. Any one ever connected with school work 
can recall the upsetting of daily programs, the general 
breakdown of school morale that often has accompanied 
the examination week or the promotion week of past 
•experience. To repeat this general upset every five 
weeks would make consecutive constructive work im- 
possible, it will be justly claimed. No arguments for 
review examinations could justify such constant inter- 
ruptions of our school work in order to take stock of 
-our school progress. Indeed, under the old system, 
repeated every five weeks, we should be so exhausted 
in measuring our progress that we should have no energy 
left with which to progress. 

If we are able to promote every five weeks we must 
devise an examination system so wholly different from 
the customary one that not a single one of the many 
•obvious evils of the old plan will be present. 

In the hope of finding a way of examining our pupils 
that will lessen the mental fatigue of both pupil and 
teacher, we have, as we have hinted, the possibility of 
some approximation of the widely used tests of general 
intelligence. 

Psychologists tell us that in bringing from our store- 
house of memory the things we once have known, but 
have put aside for the moment from our minds, we have 
at least two common methods — recollection and rec- 
ognition. 

If I have an important engagement I may recollect, or 
more tersely expressed, recall that fact as the time ap- 
proaches, though the engagement had not been con- 
sciously in my mind for weeks. On the other hand, if 
I pursue ordinary business methods, I will have noted 



EXAMINATIONS AND RECOGNITION TESTS 293 

the date on my desk calendar, or pocket reminder, and as 
I glance over the calendar for the week recognize that 
I have the engagement on a certain date. In the one 
instance, I recalled the date without material help; in 
the other, I recognized the appointment when I referred 
to my written memorandum. 

In the same way we may sometimes meet a friend of . 
earlier years ; we recognize him at once, but cannot recall 
his name. However, were we given that name mixed among 
a dozen others, we would almost surely recognize the 
name when we reached it on the list. Again, most of 
us knew at one time the date of the granting of the 
Magna Charta ; we may not recall that date at once, but 
if we ever really knew it, we will be pretty sure to recog- 
nize it when we know it is one of the following: 1776, 
1310, 1215, 1492, 1607. Similarly, we may recognize 
the author of Twice Told Tales if we know that he is one 
of the following: Whittier, Longfellow, Bryant, Haw- 
thorne, Kipling. 

By and large, the kind of memory that we need most* 
because we use it most is recognition and not recall. 
Granted that recognition is a lower type of memory than 
recall, it is still a most valuable and necessary part of 
our equipment in the use we make of it after we have 
left school. 

Furthermore, recognition, while it is not all of memory, 
is still a most important part of it. We cannot recog- 
nize that which we have never known. We do not "give 
away the answer" when we ask a man to select the cor- 
rect answer among several that we may suggest. We do 
make it easier for a man to answer us by such a method, 
but he must still make the correct selection by recog- 
nizing it of and by himself. Though constant recog- 
nition of once learned facts is most necessary for our 



294 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

daily tasks, whatever they may be, yet our exami- 
nations in school and college have been largely, if not 
wholly, matters of recall, making these examinations 
difficult beyond all ordinary necessity and wholly out of 
line with the newer psychological tests. 

We may then attempt to build up "recognition tests" 
based upon the selection of the right answer from four 
or five answers that are suggested. This is one of the 
possible types of tests awaiting experimentation. 

A second type of examination may be to ask each pupil 
to judge and indicate by a mark the truth or falsity of 
each of several statements that we lay before them. This 
we might call a "true or false" type examination. 

In our written tests we have always been limited in the 
number and range of our questions by the pupil's ability 
to set down the answers within the time limit, to say 
nothing of our own endurance limit in the fatigue brought 
on by the correction of the answers the pupil hands in. 

If, however, the pupil's knowledge is to be shown by a 
simple check mark the time limit both for the pupil who 
writes and for the teacher who corrects is at once taken 
from the list of examination difficulties. Instead of ask- 
ing ten questions we may ask — and should ask — no less 
than fifty. So far as our subject is concerned we now 
will have almost wholly avoided the source of error that 
comes from a limited range of questions. Under the old 
plan, we are obliged to make a limited selection of ques- 
tions and so, often to rate the pupil's entire work on the 
basis of the small sample he submits in his written an- 
swers. This is manifestly unfair, but it has hitherto been 
regarded as unavoidable. Under the newer plan, while 
we may not cover every last point worthy of recognition, 
we at least have increased the dependability of our ex- 
amination results by just that amount that we have 



EXAMINATIONS AND RECOGNITION TESTS 295 

increased the amount of information covered by our new 
test as compared with our older one. 

As examples of the "true or false" type of examination 
questions, we may have some like the following, selected 
wholly at random from one of eighty questions in each of 
several subject examinations: 

(a) An acute angle is greater than a right angle. 

(b) A base ball team playing 36 games lost 25% of them, 
winning 25 games. 

(c) (a + l) 2 = a 2 + 2a + l. 

(d) Heather Ale is a flower. 

(e) In Herve Riel the English beat the French. 

(f) A period is always used after an abbreviation. 

(g) The future active emphatic indicative of "try" is "I will 
be tried." 

(h) Alexander the Great was a Roman. 

(i) Charlemagne lived about 1492. 

(j) It is good French to say "Parlez douxment." 

(k) It is good French to say "Son amiable soer." 

(1) It was Clovis who made Paris the capital of France. 

(m) The Journal is the book of original entry. 

(n) The first true leaves of a germinating seed are called 

the plumule, 
(o) Cassius led Brutus to believe that the entire fortune of 

the conspiracy depended upon Brutus' taking part, 
(p) Portia and Calpurnia were well fitted to be the wives of 

great men. 
(q) King Arthur kept Gareth's secret, 
(r) Madame Curie discovered the X-Rays. 
(s) Criticism (of a classmate's composition) is designed 

chiefly to point out errors, 
(t) Sohrab received a warning before the fight, 
(u) Few tropical areas are controlled by nations in the 

temperate zones, 

"What," some one will at once object, "shall we give 
in our tests, questions that are examples of the poorest 
type known in teaching, the ' Yes ' and ' No ' questions? 



296 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

Shall we make the examinations a matter of chance so 
that any pupil may hope for a fifty per cent rating on the 
basis of the law of probability, as one might flip a coin fifty 
times?" Yes, we answer, just that, horrible as it may 
seem — and the more horrible still because wherever 
tried this newer type of examination has come to stay, 
because all who have used it are convinced of its un- 
questioned usefulness and undeniable value. 

However, to soften the shock, we may explain that to 
lessen the influence of chance we can do three things. 

First, we can ask so many questions (never less than 
fifty; over eighty being highly desirable) that the influ- 
ence of any one single chance answer upon the final result 
will be correspondingly small. 

Second, we can arrange our questions or statements so 
that exactly fifty percent of them can only be answered 
correctly by "yes" and fifty per cent by "no." 

Third, we can, in determining each pupil's final score, 
subtract those that are wrong from those that are right, 
giving the pupil a "net score" of right answers over wrong 
answers that largely, if not wholly, obviates chance. 

For example, if a pupil, following the law of chance, 
and without other influence whatever, answered twenty- 
five questions correctly and twenty-five questions incor- 
rectly, on a fifty-question test his net score would be 
exactly zero, which would be the rating he deserved. 

On the contrary, if a pupil blindly marked every 
question "no," thereby expecting to get at least fifty 
per cent on his test, he could be arbitrarily rated zero 
because at the start he was told that approximately 
half the questions were correctly answered by "yes" and 
half by "no." In any event, this pupil's net score would 
be zero if our subtraction plan were followed. 

Finally, some clever mathematician will discover that 



EXAMINATIONS AND RECOGNITION TESTS 297 

theoretically a pupil who answered more questions wrong 
than right would receive a minus rating. As an example, 
if a pupil answered forty questions wrong and only ten 
correctly, his net score would be minus thirty. Yet this 
need not discourage us unduly, for even though this never 
has been known to happen, the pupil with a minus 
score would simply receive a lower relative rating than 
the pupil who scored zero. 

As a matter of fact, in any actual test the number of 
"rights" always exceeds the number of "wrongs" and the 
pupils' net scores can be transposed to fit the type of 
rating used in the individual schools by making a chart 
which will show at a glance the percent value (if that is 
required) for each pupil's possible net score from zero, 
or below, to the maximum of fifty, or more, correct an- 
swers. Under the system of Relative Rating to be dis- 
cussed in our next chapter, the grading of these pupils 
is even simpler. 

A third type of examination may be a modified 
"completion test" in which the pupil is given from 
ten to twenty longer or shorter sentences or state- 
ments based upon the subject-matter he is studying. 
From each sentence or statement the examiner will pre- 
viously have erased certain key words, or key phrases, 
whose replacement is left to the pupil in order to make 
the statement complete and valid. 

In order to lessen the time needed for the test with- 
out greatly lessening its value as an examination, the 
missing word or phrase may sometimes be supplied as 
one of four or five from which the pupil must select the 
single one which will make the statement correct — as for 
two very simple examples, "In order to find the annual 
interest upon an investment we must (add, subtract, mul- 
tiply, divide) the amount invested the rate per 



298 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

cent." In this case the pupil would be expected to under- 
line "multiply" and insert "by" in the blank space. Again 
"The earliest New England settlers were men of great 
(weakness, indecision, determination, disagreement), 
though they were (fully aware, largely ignorant, in- 
formed, independent) of the difficulties that lay before 
them." 

By questions of this type it is possible for the examiner 
to put his finger at once upon the exact point he wishes to 
test with no possibility of evasion or misunderstanding, 
as in the illustrations above upon "multiply" and upon 
"determination." 

Let no one suppose that these newer plans of "recogni- 
tion," or "true or false statement" or "completion" exami- 
nations can be worked out easily or in a short space of 
time. The older type of examinations could be "set" in 
half an hour, the newer type can often not be worked out 
satisfactorily in a week. 

The great gain, however, comes in the entire absence 
of fatigue and prostration on the part of pupils and 
teacher that so often accompanied or followed the formal 
day of examination. The pupils are no longer subjected 
to the nervous depletion once thought unavoidable at 
such a time. There is no longer a period of suspense and 
fear "while the papers are being corrected." Best of 
all the teacher is able to begin the new work that lies 
just ahead with energies unimpaired by the strain of 
days of "marking papers." Under the newer plan "mark- 
ing papers" may be almost unbelievably simple and easy. 

The pupils are given the mimeographed sheets, or they 
may enter a room where the questions are written on the 
board, or they may even be simply provided with blank 
sheets upon which the answers are to be recorded as the 
teacher dictates them — the first plan being undoubtedly 
the best one. 



: 



EXAMINATIONS AND RECOGNITION TESTS 299 

The working period, varying with the subject, the 
number of questions, the exact type of statement em- 
ployed, may range from twenty to forty minutes, to sur- 
pass in accuracy the old-time three-hour examination. 

When the examination is completed, after thirty min- 
utes or so, each pupil will have upon his answer paper, 
which he hands in, a long numbered column, or columns, 
marked V or X> or yes or no or possibly a series of under- 
scored words or phrases. 

The pupils having been previously directed to arrange 
their papers in absolutely identical fashion, the teacher 
now has but to place alongside each pupil's answer list, his 
own correct answer guide, and to check or cross the pupil's 
answers as they agree or fail to agree with his own key- 
list. To total and subtract takes but an instant, so that 
each pupil's paper can be finally corrected and scored in 
thirty seconds, or even less, as one becomes more skillful. 
No question of judgment is involved ; there is no delay and 
no appreciable fatigue. In two hours the teacher can 
now do what under the old plan would have taken twenty 
hours. 

Indeed still further, when a class can be trusted to fol- 
low directions exactly and implicitly, it may even be 
asked to score the test results for its own and similar 
classes, thereby enabling the teacher to secure and tabu- 
late the final results in an incredibly short time. 

Though not necessarily always desirable, it is possible 

With SUFFICIENTLY THOUGHTFUL AND PAINSTAKING PREPA- 
RATION to give a test to two hundred pupils and to tab- 
ulate the final ratings all in a forty-five minute period. 
It is also possible to get more extended and dependable 
measurements than could be secured on the old plan by a 
three-hour examination with twenty hours for reading, 
grading and tabulating the answers. 



300 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

For a moment let us review the gains secured by 
such a new type of examination as we propose. 

First: It gives both pupil and teacher a far more 
complete and accurate picture of the pupil's own knowl- 
edge or skill than was ever possible under the old plan. 

Second: It wholly saves each pupil from the fatigue, 
the strain, and the terror that seemed often a necessary ac- 
companiment of the long written test. 

Third: It conserves the teacher's strength for teach- 
ing and for constructive work, instead of sentencing him 
to hour after hour of painful drudgery in the correction 
of examination papers. 

Not that the teacher escapes scot-free from the work 
of examination by this new method of testing, but that 
the work is now of a different type — valuable, inter- 
esting and constructive. Instead of spending one hour 
in making up an examination paper and from twelve to 
twenty hours correcting the answers, the teacher now 
does his hard work before the examination begins. In- 
stead of spending one hour in making the paper, the 
teacher may now spend more than four or five hours in 
preparation. The points to be covered in the test are 
noted and tentative statements of questions are written 
down, until finally in a longer or shorter period, from 
fifty to a hundred questions, or statements, are prepared 
for the test itself. When it is possible, mimeographed or 
hectographed sheets are desirable, but even dictated 
questions with a reasonable pause for the scoring does 
not appear greatly to modify the results. Yet the 
results justify the difference in preparation, for the newer 
type can be framed to give definite, exact, objective 
standards of measurement which will be practically 
uniform no matter who corrects the papers — whereas the 
older type of examination tested so many things as a 



EXAMINATIONS AND RECOGNITION TESTS 301 

rule in one single question, that the personal equation of 
the examiner made possible variations in grading that 
might range from as low as 40% to as high as 90% on 
the very same examination paper. 

Furthermore the task of preparing the newer type of 
examination may be lessened, if, from the very start 
of the period to be covered later by a formal written 
test, the teacher begins to work up a set of possible 
questions by framing each day one or more questions 
that may be of use in the final examination. 

However, the whole idea is so new and so insufficiently 
tried that it has been found to be as yet largely a matter 
of self-training and experimentation for each teacher 
who would enter this almost untrodden field. And yet 
there seems no possibility of ultimate failure if the 
intelligent experimenter continually uses as a guide or 
pattern one or more of the established tests of general 
intelligence now so easily obtainable. 

No one will yet contend that any teacher can at once 
sit down and work out an examination of the newer type 
that will defy criticism, yet in so far as any teacher is 
able to approximate the newer type of examinations in 
a worthy form, by just that much the final examinations 
of the future will be robbed of their terrors and the labors 
of the teacher will be lightened. 

By using carefully thought out Recognition Tests it 
is possible to examine all the pupils of a school on one 
day and to have their examination ratings read}?- the next 
day without any other disturbance of the school than 
the setting of a uniform time for each thirty-minute test, 
so that pupils previously examined may not be tempted 
to give information to those whose test in the same sub- 
ject is still to come. 

On the day following the tests, a series of grade con- 



302 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

ferences may decide what pupils, if any, are to be moved 
up or down from the homogeneous speed group in which 
they were placed at the time of the examination. By the 
end of the second day the school may be moving ahead 
as steadily as if there had been no promotion day at all, 
the clerical work is finished, the promotions are over and 
past. 

Even if this picture seems unbelievably rose-hued, it 
is still within the possibilities for every junior high school, 
that will plan its promotion days with sufficient fore- 
thought and intelligent care, to demonstrate this picture 
for itself. Even if one hundred per cent efficiency does 
not come on the first, second, or even third, trial, the gain 
each time (even the first time) over the old plan will win 
converts consistently from the pupils, teachers and super- 
visors. Let us not therefore be prejudiced against try- 
ing the new plan because it is easier than seems reason- 
able, but rather let us be open to conviction that it is bet- 
ter because it is more accurate, whether easier or not. 
Four or five honest trials will do the rest. 

However, if we decide to try the new examinations at 
all, let us resolve at the beginning to try them for a sem- 
ester, giving quarterly examinations, or monthly exam- 
inations as we prefer. The one thing that we must keep 
in mind is that we are almost sure to make mistakes 
at the beginning, so we must resolve in advance not to 
give up the experiment because our first trials may be 
only partially satisfactory. 

Were the Chinese who study three years for a three- 
day examination truly anxious to determine not memory, 
but fitness, for civil service promotion, it is probable that 
a psychological test could be devised that would give the 
Chinese authorities in thirty minutes a more accurate and 
dependable test of mental fitness than the present gruel- 



EXAMINATIONS AND RECOGNITION TESTS 303 

ling grind discloses. Equally, in our American schools 
and colleges, it is possible and probable that the next few 
years will devise mental tests for which one cannot 
"cram" or prepare by a short period of super-application 
and yet which will give in one tenth the time results more 
accurate than are secured from any tests now in vogue. 

Indeed, Columbia College has already pointed the way 
— and to the surprise of many critics the new, specially 
devised entrance tests of general intelligence, in so far 
as they have been studied, correlate or agree more nearly 
with the entering student's subsequent first year's achieve- 
ment than do any other estimates of the student's fitness 
that can be secured in advance of the actual college work 
itself. It has even now been indicated at Columbia that 
the probable character of a student's first year of work 
can be more truly forecast by such special "intelligence 
test" than by the result of his teacher's estimates, his 
principal's estimates, his (N. Y. State) Regents exami- 
nations, or even his uniform college entrance examina- 
tions set by college professors themselves. We may not 
therefore be charged with over-optimism if we look for- 
ward to a steady increase in the institutions adopting 
something very different from the old line/written tests. 

However, without waiting for these new-type tests to 
be generally introduced, or even to be specially devised 
for us in the junior high school, we may work as pioneers 
in clearing the way for the new tests that seem bound to 
arrive. 

As an example of one of the best of the newer type 
of examinations the following sample examination may be 
of interest merely as a model. Of course this examination, 
intended for young men in their thirteenth school year, 
freshmen at Columbia University completing their first 
year of college work, is far above the capacity of any 



304 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

junior high school group. Yet from a study of this ex- 
amination which is in many ways the best of its kind 
I have ever seen, we may form some idea of the newer 
type of examination that we may set for our much 
younger and far less mature pupils. 

The entire test is not printed here, but approximately 
one tenth of it only. The questions we quote are selected 
at random. 



CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION 1920-1921 
Sample Examination 

Directions for Part I: Read these statements and mark 
each one at the left of its number with a plus or minus sign 
according as you judge it to be true or false. Each correct 
mark gives one credit; each incorrect mark counts as a 
penalty against you and is subtracted from your score; omitted 
sentences count neither for nor against you. In judging the 
truth or fallacy of a sentence, take the whole sentence as a 
unit. Your score will be based only upon plus and minus 
signs; don't waste time writing anything else on these sheets. 
Remember, an omission counts against you much less than 
a wrong response. 



1. In general water-bodies and mountains have been, not 

centers, but barriers of civilization. 

2. The civilization of the Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans 

centered about several short river basins. 

3. The country with widely differentiated climate has many 

advantages over countries with very uniform climates. 

4. Isothermal and rainfall maps show that there is greater 

variety and irregularity of climate in the southern than 
in the northern hemisphere. 

5. The Atlantic and Gulf states need irrigation because of 

the low mean annual rainfall. 



EXAMINATIONS AND RECOGNITION TESTS 305 



B 

Man's mental life is in an appreciably large measure identical 
with that of the lower animals, especially of the most 
highly developed vertebrates, such as the monkey. 

In the same organism the same situation will always pro- 
duce the same response. 

Instincts as such are inadequate to adjust either the in- 
dividual or the group to contemporary conditions. 

Intelligent habits are most easily acquired in the maturer 
years of a man's life. 

A man weeding a garden may tire of the weeding long be- 
fore he is really physically exhausted by the work itself^ 



1. The ideas of nationalism and of democracy are essentially 

modern in their expression. 

2. In Italy and in the Netherlands the city states were the 

political units in 1500. 

3. The merchant guilds were more democratic than the craft 

guilds. 

4. According to Hayes the one motive of the Spanish dis- 

coverers on the high seas was commercial rivalry with the 
Italian merchant cities. 

5. India was won for England by the English East India Com- 

pany, first organized in 1600, which conducted the con- 
quest and government of India for over two centuries. 

Part II 

Directions for Part II. Fill in the blank spaces so as to 
make the sentences sensible and true; you get one credit for 
each blank filled so that it makes sense. 



A society may be democratic in its form and 

still in fact if the majority of its citizens are merely 



306 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

machines which can be to respond in certain deter- 
minate to customary stimuli of names, party slo- 
gans and leaders. Literally, most people think, if at all, when 
they and they have to. 



Just as agriculture is the ultimate of human 

society, so has always been an index of culture and 

civilization. And the of town life have ever de- 
pended on the vicissitudes of and So 

the reviving commerce of the middle ages be- 
tween Europe and meant the of cities 

and betokened an in civilization. 



Part III 

Directions for Part III. In the following sentences you 
have four or more choices for the last word. Draw a line under 
the one word which you think will make the sentence sensible 
and true. 

A 

1. Modern culture is most nearly akin to that of the Ancient 

Romans Athenians Spartans. 

2. The Reformation in England took place about 1490 1550 

1600 1670. 

3. The term Huguenots was applied to residents in France who 

professed the teachings of Calvin Zwingli Luther John 
Huss John Knox. 

4. The Pacification of Ghent involved primarily the people 

of Spain France Holland England. 

5. The principal motive of Columbus in sailing westward was 

scientific religious commercial patriotic. 

B 

1. Rural isolation is made unsatisfactory principally by the 
instinct of gregariousness sympathy love imita- 
tion. 



EXAMINATIONS AND RECOGNITION TESTS 307 

2. The tendency of man to believe as others believe is due 
to sympathy gregariousness submissiveness love of 
country fear. 

C 

1. The nation which has the largest coal areas is Germany 
China United Kingdom India U. S. A. 



Part IV 

Directions for Part IV. Write in brief space the most im- 
portant things you know about the following suggestive words 
and phrases; do not follow the order in which they are printed 
here, but write first about those that you know most about. 
The sample is simply a hint, and not a model which you must 
follow. 

Competing Impulses — Loss of efficiency in a given task due 
to these is frequently miscalled fatigue. Thorndike tells us that 
we are more often tired of work, not by it. It is not fatigue but 
distraction that impairs efficiency and makes us quit, in the 
great majority of cases; we frequently work freely at a task 
that we like for many consecutive hours, and are impatient if 
we are compelled to stop; but we cannot quit an unwelcome 
task too soon. Literally, we are often more tired by not doing 
something than by what we are doing. 

Social Inertia 

Restriction of Population 

Functions of the Merchant Guild 

Two sample examinations in junior high school English 
may serve in a way to show the possibilities in this 
work. 

The first, a test on events and names, may serve to 
discover evidence of the pupil's actual interest in the 
book he has read, or in other words, the vividness of his 
impressions as measured by his memory of the details 
of the story. 

The second test may be used to measure the success of 
attempting to teach an understanding of men and motives 



308 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

— vicarious experience if you will — to develop the pu- 
pil's own powers of inference and judgment. 

Approximately one tenth of the questions in each test 
are reproduced here. 

Questions on Events and Names in 
Treasure Island 

Check the right word or statement. 

1. The name of the inn where Jim Hawkins lived was 

(a) The Spy-Glass 

(b) The Spanish Main 

(c) The Royal George 

(d) The Admiral Benbow 

2. When the mutineers reached the treasure-cache they dis- 

covered 

(a) the money intact 

(b) the treasure stolen 

(c) pig nuts 

3. Squire Trelawney was assisted in picking the crew by 

(a) Dr. Livesay 

(b) John Silver 

(c) Captain Smollet 

(d) Tom Redruth 

4. Silver came in possession of the chart because 

(a) Captain Smollet gave it to him 

(b) he stole it from Jim 

(c) he found it in the block house 

5. Jim and his mother were saved from the pirates 

(a) by the revenue officers 

(b) by Squire Trelawney 

(c) by the quarrels of the pirates among themselves 

Questions of Inference and Judgment on 
Treasure Island 

Mark with a plus sign the statements that are true. Mark 
with a circle sign the statements that are false. 
1. John Silver changed his ways as the result of the kindness 
shown him. 



EXAMINATIONS AND RECOGNITION TESTS 309 

2. Jim did not believe Ben Gunn's story. 

3. Jim's information about the intended plot caught his 

friends unprepared. 

4. Sending the mutinous crew ashore practically started the 

hostilities. 

5. It would have been better for Jim's friends if he had stayed 

in the Block-House. 



QUESTIONS 

1. What are the chief arguments against the long written 

examination? 

2. What are the merits of such tests? 

3. Why can (cannot) promotion examinations be dispensed 

with? 

4. Who suffers most in fatigue, the teacher or the pupil and 

why? What ill results? 

5. Why are frequent promotion periods highly desirable'? 

6. What bars this frequency at present? 

7. Have I secured at least three modern types of group tests 

for general intelligence with their respective phamplets 
showing how I may conduct these tests myself? 

8. Give with illustrations at least three types of questions used 

in these group tests. 

9. What benefits may result from modeling our junior high 

school examinations on these tests ? 

10. What is the chief barrier to preparing such tests at present ? 

The very best book upon the subject of tests of general 
intelligence appears to the author to be the "The Memoirs of 
the National Academy of Sciences" Vol. XV, 1921, published by 
the Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C. This work 
is as bulky as an unabridged dictionary, but full to the cover 
of facts most valuable to one attempting to construct the newer 
type of tests. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

RELATIVE RATINGS AND PUPILS' REPORT 
CARDS 

School reports and report cards have been so long a 
matter of custom that we are apt to assume that their 
usefulness is beyond question. 

To be sure, parents, who send their children to a school 
which they themselves rarely, if ever, visit, have an 
unquestioned right to know how their child's progress 
in school is being maintained, but it is by no means 
a settled question as to whether or not the usual school 
report-card gives the parents the information which they 
have a right and a duty to receive. 

The pupil himself is also interested in his school re- 
ports and they are /valuable to him chiefly in assisting 
him to gain the ability to judge correctly his own prog- 
ress in the school work he is pursuing. Parents and 
teachers are all too familiar with the pupil who main- 
tains, with all the power at his command, that his ratings 
are unfair, prejudiced and altogether too low, giving an 
entirely incorrect record of his actual achievement. 

In the very great majority of such instances the parent, 
or surety the teacher, if he will take the time, can ex- 
plain the ratings to the pupil's entire satisfaction and 
such time is often very well spent in doing this. However, 
this but illustrates the necessity for training pupils to 
form a correct estimate of their own success or failure 
in the work at hand. How can we expect a deficient 
pupil to improve in his daily class work if in his own 

310 



RELATIVE RATINGS AND REPORT CARDS 311 

estimation that work is already highly satisfactory? Our 
school reports, if they are the result of careful and 
painstaking study on the part of each teacher, can and do 
perform a very distinct service in checking up the pupil's 
estimate of his own success, and the parent owes it to 
his child to support the teacher's ratings. 

To the teacher, too, these periodic reports are especially 
/valuable in that they require him periodically to take 
stock of his own work and of his own success as a teacher. 
Though some teachers take pride in being "hard 
markers," and promote, as a proof of their own thor- 
oughness, a comparatively small portion of each class 
they instruct, still the wise teacher knows that there is 
a direct relationship between the number promoted and 
his own skill in teaching and is, therefore, genuinely in- 
terested and greatly helped by the periodic report which 
is sent to each pupil's home. 

Every one connected with the school which a pupil at- 
tends may therefore be benefited by the periodic reports 
which the school may send out — the parents gaining 
information as to their children's progress, the pupils 
gaining the ability to estimate more correctly their own 
success in school and the teacher gaining a better idea 
of his own work of instruction. 

It does not, however, follow by any means that any 
kind of a report, or even that the usual home report 
card, can and does secure these advantages. To be sure, 
a poor report-card may be better than none, but it is 
easily possible for a report-card to give incorrect, faulty, 
or imperfect information that will do as much harm as 
good to the three parties most concerned. 

Restricting ourselves for the time wholly to school re- 
ports in the major subjects of study — English, Mathe- 
matics, History, etc., etc. — we find that until recently the 



312 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

customary form of report has been a percentage mark as 
"Reading 79%, Grammar 73%, Composition 77%, etc., 
etc. The report-card carried the information, or the 
parent was supposed to know, that 70%, for example, was 
the passing mark. From the report-card therefore the 
parent might gain some idea of his child's distance in 
"points" either above, or below, that pre-announced per- 
centage which served to indicate failure. 

When students of education began to make a study of 
school ratings, they at once discovered that the percentage 
ratings of general class work supplied a picture of rating 
accuracy that was grossly exaggerated. Even in the cor- 
rection of written examination papers the most accurate 
of all school ratings, it was found that three or four teach- 
ers, marking the very same paper, might easily vary as 
much as the difference between 55% and 75% in their 
estimates. Indeed it was shown that the very same 
teacher, marking the very same examination papers after 
a lapse of several days or weeks, might easily vary at 
least ten percent in his estimate of the same pupil's writ- 
ten answers. How much greater, therefore, could be the 
error in estimating a pupil's achievement in class-room 
work, consisting, as it may, of recitations, blackboard 
work, home study, special assignments and, possibly, lab- 
oratory work, or class excursions. If a written examina- 
tion cannot give an accurate statement in a percentage 
rank, how much less can a teacher sum up all those vari- 
ous elements combined in "class work" and give them 
a percentage rank that is a true measure of the pupil's 
achievement. 

It was shown by those who specialized on this inves- 
tigation that as for example between ratings of 75% and 
80% in any subject, there was, as a rule, absolutely no 
actual difference whatsoever in terms of the pupil's real 



RELATIVE RATINGS AND REPORT CARDS 313 

achievement. Indeed, the best that could be said for any 
percentage mark showing the pupils' class-room progress, 
was that it gave a rough approximation of the pupils' 
actual achievement. 

As a result of this awakening, students of education 
proposed the plan of group marking which has more and 
more come into general use. By this plan, pupils are 
given a letter or a number which shows their member- 
ship in a class-room sub-group of pupils more or less 
alike in school success. The symbols are usually either 
numbers or letters, such as, 1, 2, 3, 4, (5) ; or I, II, III, IV 
(V), or A, B, C, D (E). A certain number or letter is 
selected to indicate failure usually 4, IV, or D, while the 
preceding marks in the sequence are supposed to indicate 
increased success up to 1, 1, or A, which is the highest rat- 
ing obtainable under this system. The merits of this 
group marking system consist chiefly in the fact that 
both parents and pupils are no longer misled by ratings 
that appear to make most accurate statements, while, in 
reality, they may record something quite different. An 
added merit in the adoption of the group mark lies in 
the blow it has given some few hair-splitting teachers 
who were wont to make distinctions in rating between 
pupils even so closely graded as 72.3% and 72.4% and 
other utterly absurd distinctions. 

Therefore, if our aim is to give parents, pupils and 
teachers a really accurate picture of the pupils' progress 
in his school work, we shall be obliged to revise 
our "home reports" very greatly. It is but natural that 
the proposed improvement in home reports should be 
adopted more readily in the junior high school than in 
schools more bound by jcustom and tradition. Morever, 
the classification of pupils into homogeneous speed groups 
lends itself more readily to a new rating plan than does 



314 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

a classification based on other considerations alone. But 
first let us consider some further very obvious defects 
that may easily exist in the two older systems of rating 
pupils. 

In the first place, we may have assumed that for any 
definite class and pupil the rating "Arithmetic 60%" had 
a very exact significance. This assumption may be based 
upon our belief that in this class a child of average abil- 
ity might secure a rating of "Arithmetic 100%," if atten- 
tive and industrious. The parent, at least, has no very 
definite idea of the particular requirements upon which 
this rating is based and will usually assume the 100% 
possibility for his child. There are, however, very many 
factors usually neglected by the parent that enter into the 
"Arithmetic 60%" that we are considering. If the teacher 
has based this particular rating upon work so difficult 
that the class average in arithmetic at this time is 50%, 
then the rating of 60% is not the low rating its numerical 
value would seem to indicate. If it should happen for the 
month or so which this rating is supposed to coyer, that 
the highest rating secured by any pupil in this "average" 
class was 60%, then the apparently mediocre, or dis- 
graceful, rating of 60% really indicates phenomenal suc- 
cess on the part of the pupil who won a 60% rank for the 
period. If, on the other hand, it should happen that the 
work for this particular period was so simple that the 
class as a whole secured ratings in arithmetic above 90%, 
then a single rating of 60% would call for the parent's 
immediate and serious condemnation of his child's lack 
of application to school work. 

To be sure, it may be maintained that our school work 
should be so graded that there should be no such fluctu- 
ations in difficulty as we have portrayed, to the end that 
60% should mean exactly 60% of the possible 100% within 



RELATIVE RATINGS AND REPORT CARDS 315 

reach of every average pupil. Yet, however much we 
may desire such a grading of work, we are still so far 
from reaching even a rough approximation of a week-by- 
week grading in difficulty, that we are obliged to give up 
hope for the present of securing such a permanent ar- 
rangement. Indeed, even if the work itself could be 
graded so perfectly in difficulty as to appear to give each 
percentage rating the hope of becoming a genuine ap- 
proximation of tru'e school success, there would always be 
other factors to reduce its credibility. A national hol- 
iday, a school entertainment, a school baseball game, 
even a close inter-class athletic contest might easily 
sway the class average in any subject away from that 
perfect mark which uniform grading might otherwise 
have made possible. 

What is true of the general unreliability of the picture 
presented by a percentage rating applies also, though 
to a lessened degree, to the numerical or letter ratings, 
which are, after all, but groupings of percentage marks. 
The rating 3, III, or C, after all, usually means that 
the pupil with such a rating is given a percentage mark 
somewhere between 60% and 70% in his subject. There- 
fore, under conditions already described, namely, a very 
difficult or an extremely easy examination, there might 
easily be class situations where a rating of "C" might 
indicate either a very good or an extremely poor month's 
work, depending largely upon the ratings secured at this 
time by our pupil's own classmates who were given 
similar tasks and similar instruction in preparation for 
this same test. 

After all, is it not the relative standing of a pupil, a 
statement of his work compared with his classmates, that 
is of most value to the parent, to the pupil himself and to 
his teacher? If we, as parents, wish to judge our child's 



316 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

progress in school, is not the best indication of that prog- 
ress some rating to show us whether our child is leading 
his class, keeping up with the class average, or falling be- 
hind the others of his group? Ought we not to be in- 
formed how our child compares in work with other 
children who are attempting to do the same work as 
our child under, on the whole, the same conditions 
of teacher, grade and class. If we are told that 
our child's progress is rated II, or B, we might form 
a picture of his success that would be greatly modified 
if we happened to learn that even the poorest students 
in his class likewise were rated B at the time of that 
report. Similarly, if our child is rated III, or C, we may 
be led to punish him for neglect of duty and then be 
astonished by finding out, after inquiry at the school, that 
the hardest working pupils received no higher rating than 
III, or C, on that report. Such things have happened and 
do happen over and over again. . 

I remember well" one earnest and painstaking teacher 
who thought to make her pupils also earnest and energetic 
by rating them all as "D," or failure, on their first report 
of any school term. Having thus scared her pupils with 
fear of failure, she gradually, report by report, advanced 
their rating from "D" to "C" to "B," until at promotion 
time practically all were rated "A" and finished in a blaze 
of glory. For the parents of the pupils in this class there 
never was a time when the report card had any genuine 
significance. Few of her pupils were ever "D" and fewer 
still were ever "A." There are still teachers who find 
scaring the pupils, or their parents, by unduly severe re- 
ports a more or less effective way of getting home lessons 
attended to. That conscientious parents are being tricked 
into punishing their children unnecessarily and wrong- 
fully may never have entered such teachers' heads — the 



RELATIVE RATINGS AXD REPORT CARDS 317 

one idea on this subject that had entered and remained 
there was that reports to parents could be manipulated so 
as to secure better results for the class as a whole than 
could be obtained without such reports. However, as 
parents we have both the right and the duty to receive 
reports that give the truest possible picture of our child's 
school progress. If we are ever to receive such a picture 
it must be worked out on some scientific mathematical 
basis that permits of little doctoring, however praise- 
worthy be the motives behind such manipulation of the 
ratings we receive. 

The system of relative rating not only gives a more 
accurate picture of the actual situation in which our child 
is placed, but over and beyond this, such a system lends 
itself not at all to the manipulation that other systems 
permit. The system of relative ratings is, beyond any 
reasonable doubt, the most accurate, as well as the most 
fool-proof system, yet employed. 

For the pupil, likewise, the rating which gives him an 
idea of how he is keeping up with his fellows is of more 
value to him than would be a rating made by comparing 
what he does do with some purely abstract standard which 
the teacher, or superintendent, puts down as a theoret- 
ical 100% of work he should do, but of which the pupil 
himself can at best haA~e but a hazy idea. 

For the teacher, as well as for the parent and the pu- 
pil, the value of assigning relative ratings is very great. 
One value to the teacher lies in the emphasis laid upon 
offering only such work and instruction as is within the 
range of his pupils' actual power of achievement. An 
accompanying value is in the emphasis placed upon 
the human, rather than upon the text-book, phase of re- 
cording school standing. If the teacher has a certain num- 
ber of facts, processes, or pages, to be covered in a 



318 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

month's time, it is comparatively easy, under the old 
plan, to penalize by a low rating all who fail to secure a 
pre-determined percentage of these facts, processes, or 
pages of text. But this low rating may, after all, be 
simply the result of the teacher's own failure to properly 
introduce, develop and review the facts in question. The 
pupils who receive, as a class, more or less uniformly low 
ratings, may easily be the innocent victims of poor in- 
struction. 

However, with the lash of low ratings taken out of his 
hands, the indifferent teacher is forced constantly to 
check up and revise instruction so that his class is led 
daily to attempt only such new work as is, under his more 
skillful guidance, really within the mental range of 
his pupil's possibilities. For each of the teacher's pupils, 
the major question becomes "How is John Jones keeping 
up with his class? The expert teacher is, as a result, 
more free to plan work for his class as a whole and less 
hampered by having to make judgments whose accuracy 
he himself holds in question. This might seem to fos- 
ter an undesirable change in the teacher's attitude by 
taking his attention from the individual and placing 
it upon the class and it might easily do so if our classes 
were not graded in homogeneous speed groups. Yet, 
where the teacher is assured that his pupils are about 
equal in capacity, the most helpful general information 
he can secure concerning any one pupil's individual 
progress is how that progress compares with the progress 
of the others in that pupil's class. 

For over four years at Speyer Experimental Junior 
High School, we have been using relative ratings in re- 
cording our pupils' progress in their subjects of study. 
As a result of our experience, we find that parents, 
pupils and teachers are so thoroughly committed to this 



RELATIVE RATINGS AND REPORT CARDS 319 

new form of rating that a return to one of the older 
systems would be unthinkable. 

For all our reports to parents we use the terms — 
Average, Above Average, Below Average, Excellent (very- 
much above average), Failing (very much below aver- 
age). To secure these ratings, we arrange our pupils 
roughly upon the distribution of normal probability for 
a class of 34 children in the same homogeneous speed 
groups, as follows: 

Symbol Relative Rating No. of Pupils 

1 Excellent (Very much above average) . .3 

2 Above Average 5 

3 Average 18 

4 Below Average 5 

5 Failing (very much below average) 3 

Total 34 

Whether the class as a whole does "good" or "poor" 
work, based on any abstract consideration of the work for 
the period covered by the report, the relative ratings are 
rarely varied in so far as concerns the number of pupils 
rated "Excellent," "Above Average." "Average," "Below 
Average," "Failing." Occasionally, for particular rea- 
sons, the number of "Excellents" may drop to 2, or rise to 
4, the "Above Average" may drop to 4, or rise to 6, etc., 
etc., but, by and large, the number of pupils receiving 
similar ratings holds very closely to the distribution 
shown for 34 pupils, i. e., 3, 5, 18, 5, 3. 

Based on this distribution, the parent is able to tell 
at a glance how his child's work is keeping up with the 
work of the others in his class. If his reports show suc- 
cess, by ratings of "Excellent" or "Above Average," the 
parent has every reason for satisfaction. If the report 
shows "Below Average," or "Failing," there is plain evi- 



320 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

dence that some remedial action at home or at school is 
called for. If the report shows "Average," the parent's re- 
action will depend largely upon his own ambitions for his 
child's success in school. At any rate, the parent knows far 
more accurately than ever before the quality of work his 
child is doing in school. The card carries home no 
false picture of success or failure — the difficulty of the 
work itself is discounted in advance — the one big pic- 
ture presented is that of his child doing the school work 
at hand better or worse than similar children do it under 
similar conditions, and this, after all, is the picture that 
means the most to each father or mother of a child in 
school. 

There may be some who will oppose the system of rel- 
ative rating on the ground that it is too vague, giving no 
exact picture of the pupil's progress toward that abstract 
accomplishment "promotion" at the term's end. To them 
we may answer that if promotion is genuinely within 
reach of that pupil's possibilities, he will reach it more 
surely when encouraged by relative ratings than he will 
if discouraged by a system which holds him to a stand- 
ard he cannot understand and emphasizes "working for 
marks" as against working to do his cooperative part in 
the daily tasks assigned to his classmates. When class 
progress depends upon the class average, there is an urge 
that every normal boy feels to avoid being the cause of 
his classmates' retardation by falling behind the group. 
Just as in the Great War, our boys proudly "walked 
their legs off" rather than lose their place in their march- 
ing company, so our smaller boys in school will usually 
put new effort and energy into their school work rather 
than be left behind by the average group of their advanc- 
ing classmates. Surely this desire to "keep up with the 
procession" will be a more worthy motive for effort than 






RELATIVE RATINGS AND REPORT CARDS 321 

"working for marks" might have been under the older 
system. 

Again, it may be claimed that relative rating is unethi- 
cal in that it makes it possible for one pupil to gain by 
pulling down another. While this is unquestionably 
theoretically true, I have seen no sign of it in four years 
of study of relative rating; that we might expect to find 
some signs of it is wholly reasonable, but certainly it is 
hard to find such an attitude either in the pupils' prepara- 
tion of their home lessons, or in their recitations in the 
classroom. Undoubtedly, there are some depraved pupils 
in every large group who would not hesitate to advance 
themselves by hastening another's failure, but in the nor- 
mal healthy group of an average public school, boys have 
too much respect for the power of public opinion as 
evidenced by their classmates to make any such despic- 
able attempts. On the contrary, if there is any deviation 
from the customary attitude toward school ratings, it 
comes from a feeling on the part of the very great ma- 
jority of co-partnership in the progress of the class. 
Whereas before, "the class work" went on whether pupils 
failed or passed and no pupil or group of pupils could put 
up his hand to arrest this work in its inevitable progress 
toward "a month's work" or "a term's work" or "a year's 
work," now we have something that is measured by what 
the average of the class can do, and so each pupil assumes 
a certain share of responsibility in measuring the rate of 
progress of his classmates. 

Let us frankly admit that there are classes here and 
there that, by a process of intellectual sabotage may 
strive to delay their work unduly at certain times, so that 
to be an average pupil is. more easy than it would have 
been if all had worked sincerely. These classes furnish a 
real problem, that for the present seems to have no 



322 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

better solution than the planning of more interesting 
daily work and the securing of better parental cooper- 
ation with the subject-teachers. 

Yet for the sake of these isolated classes, we would not 
give up the many unquestioned benefits secured by the 
new system of pupils' marks, any more than we would 
restrict the advantages open to all normal citizens be- 
cause a few are criminal insane. 

Moreover, this form of relative rating is so simple 
when once thoroughly understood that it lends itself to 
other uses than that of the periodic report to parents. 
I have seen, for example, a class of pupils in English 
Literature so well trained in estimating their own and 
their fellow's relative ratings that in more than nine 
cases in every ten, neither the teacher nor I could im- 
prove on them. In such a class it was the custom oc- 
casionally to hold a review recitation where each pupil 
was called upon to answer a definite question chosen from 
a carefully prepared list of questions, approximately 
equal in difficulty. After each uninterrupted answer, the 
class was called upon to vote by a show of hands into 
which of the five groups — Excellent, Above Average, 
Average, Below Average, or Failing, the pupil should 
be placed. As I have already indicated, the majority of 
the class almost never made an incorrect judgment. 
While such class ratings were never accepted as absolute, 
the very experience in rating was of great value to the pu- 
pils who did the rating, as well as to the one or two pupils 
among those rated who were habitually inclined to appeal 
from the teacher's ratings as unjust and unfair. 

Indeed, I would unhesitatingly recommend that some 
recitations in every subject be devoted to training pu- 
pils to estimate their own relative success in the work 
at hand. The pupils may be trained to see that they 



RELATIVE RATINGS AND REPORT CARDS 323 

cannot improve their own ratings by over-valuing them, 
but rather may lower them by showing a poor apprecia- 
tion of their relation to such an answer as the average 
pupil in the class might be expected to give. This better 
knowledge of relative values may and does serve to 
awaken to the realities many a pupil who was formerly 
self-satisfied, though doing below average, or still poorer 
work. 

A reproduction of the report-card used at Speyer School 
is appended for those who care to study it. 



324 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 



[front] 



REPORT OF_ 
ADDRESS 



CLASS 












CI. Teacher 












£>$tytt dpmmmtal 3lumor Hgigfo &cf)oo! 

SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT CARD 


CHARACTER 


i 


ii 


in 


IV 


V 


VI 


VII 


VIII 


PREPARATION OF HOME STUDIES 




ATTENTION IN CLASS 


















HONOR — RELIABILITY 


















CONDUCT — MANNERS 


















CONDUCT — SELF-CONTROL 


















CARE OF PROPERTY 


















SERVICE — SCHOOL SPIRIT 


















EVIDENCE OF LEADERSHIP 










— 


— 


— 
















NUTRITION 




































STUDIES 














— 




ENGLISH (Literature, Composition) 




MATHEMATICS! Arith.,Geom.,Algeb.) 


















FRENCH 


















NATURAL SCIENCE (Biol., Gen. Sci.) 


















SOCIAL STUDIES (Hist., Geog., Civics) 


















PHYSICAL TRAINING — HYGIENE 










ART 


















MUSIC 


















TYPEWRITING 












— 


— 




BOOKKEEPING 








































































SYMBOLS FOR RATINGS 
Highest Rating 1, Means Excellent 
Second " 2, " Above Average 
Third " 3, , " Average 

Fourth " 4, ' " Below Average 
Fifth " 5, " Failing 



RELATIVE RATINGS AND REPORT CARDS 325 

[reverse] 
REPORT TO THE PARENT OF 



SDepartnunt of education, €ity ot iRrto gotfc 

Speper (Experimental junior $ic# 5§ci)ooI 

(ANNEX OF P. S. 43, MANHATTAN) 

94 LAWRENCE STREET 

NEW YORK CITY 

Joseph K. Van Denburg, principal 

Dear Sir: 

The pupils of Speyer School are arranged in classes according to ability. 
In the Grade, there are classes. 

The marks assigned in the several subjects show the pupil's standing in his 
class, and indicate achievement and ability to proceed with the work of that class. 

SPEYER SCHOOL aims to prepare exceptionally bright and industrious 
pupils for advanced standing in the High Schools. Each pupil has the oppor- 
tunity of completing three years' work in two years. Mere attendance at Speyer 
School does not insure this saving of time. The opportunity is open to every 
industrious pupil; but no guarantee is given that the pupil will save a year through 
mere attendance at SPEYER SCHOOL. 

Only those pupils who show average, or higher, ability in Classes 1 and 2, or 
above average in Class 3 of this grade may be considered as showing promise of 
entering the Second Year of High School. 

Regularity in attendance, attention to class-room instruction and faithfulness 
in home study, are essential to successful achievement. Neither social engagements 
nor employment should prevent the pupil from giving at least one and one half 
hours' attention each day to home study. 

The health of the pupil is to be conserved through outdoor exercise, plain, 
nourishing food and plenty of sleep. 

Very truly, 

Joseph K. Van Denburg. 
Sample Signature: 



I have carefully studied all the ratings 


given on the 


ather side of this report card 


DATE 


CLASS 


DAYS ABSENT 


TIMES LATE 


PARENT OR GUARDIAN 


I 












11 












III 












IV 












V 












VI 












VII 












VIII 

























326 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 



QUESTIONS 

1. Of what value should a pupil's marks be to the pupil '6 

parent ? 

2. Of what use should these marks be to the pupil himself? 

3. What factors make the usual school mark very unreliable? 

4. Why are hair-splitting ratings useless? 

5. When may a rating of 60% show a high standard of 

achievement ? 

6. When may a rating of 80% show a low standard of achieve- 

ment? 

7. What is the value to a pupil and to a parent of showing 

"how the pupil is keeping up with his class?" 

8. What unfair use is sometimes made of school ratings? 

9. Why is a system of relative rating the most accurate and the 

most honest system available ? 

10. What should be the usual distribution of relative ratings in 

a class of 34 pupils? Of 24 pupils? Of 40 pupils? 

11. Plan a model report card. 



CHAPTER XIX 
PUPIL SELF-GOVERNMENT 

Experiments in the self-government of adolescents we 
know to be as old as ancient Greece where the youth were 
encouraged to prepare themselves, through membership 
in the Epheboi, for self-government among themselves, 
as a preparation for not far distant citizenship. From 
then until now, there have been here and there more or 
less sustained efforts to provide some means by which 
pupils still in school might be given some experience in 
governing themselves, both as an aid to the development 
of their own moral character at the time and as a prepa- 
ration for a more intelligent and fair minded citizenship 
when they have arrived at their maturity. 

So far as recent experiments have been concerned the 
success of all our American efforts appear to have been 
indissolubly bound up in the personality of some one 
man or woman who by virtue of his or her personal 
magnetism, judgment, tact and enthusiasm was able to 
put in operation a plan of self-government that appeared 
to succeed so long as this one controlling personal force 
was quietly, but powerfully exerted upon the pupils who 
were trying the experiment. 

We have most of us seen in recent years more or 
less elaborate School Cities in operation, working 
smoothly and efficiently to the evident delight of both pu- 
pils and teachers. We have also, most of us, seen these 
School cities collapse as a pricked bubble when the power 
behind the throne was for any reason withdrawn. 

327 



328 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

The valid criticism of many who refuse to put in 
operation any system of pupil self-government is that 
all such systems are more or less patent frauds perpe- 
trated upon more or less unsuspecting pupils. Such crit- 
ics hold truly that if it ever comes to a show-down the pu- 
pils must learn that they cannot in honesty and in truth 
be permitted to govern themselves. 

The more elaborate the system of self-government the 
more complete is apt to be its collapse, when, sooner or 
later, a case appears where the will of the pupils as ex- 
pressed by their elected representatives comes directly 
into opposition with the will of the principal, his teachers, 
or the higher school authorities. 

And yet every one who has the complete education of 
adolescents at heart is either secretly or openly searching 
for some plan of self-government that will endure the 
test of time and prove its fitness to survive even when 
the single personality that puts it in successful operation 
is withdrawn. So far as we know there has been no plan 
yet devised which has proved its complete adaptability 
under all conditions of stress and strain and yet in very 
recent years notable advances have been made in the 
self-government of adolescents. 

We will all agree that self-imposed ideals of conduct 
are the only ones of permanent value. To be sure, the 
youth who has had instilled into his mind and heart 
a fear of breaking the law of his school or of his com- 
munity may be on the road to a highly moral citizen- 
ship. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and 
the genuine fear of wrong-doing while yet it may be 
only a fear of punishment, still often serves to keep 
the possible offender in the paths which society has 
laid down for him. If we may begin with the fear of God 
as a deterrent from moral delinquency and lead from that 



PUPIL SELF-GOVERNMENT 329 

to the love of God as a basis for compliance with the 
laws our fellows make for us, then we may reach the 
true goal of moral training. However, if we both 
begin and end with fear as a deterrent, sooner or later 
the fear may be outgrown and there is nothing left 
except such habits of rectitude as may survive when 
the fear of punishment is withdrawn. 

In school we have had, and still have, the fear of the 
teacher, and when the teacher fails the fear of that dread 
person, the principal, as a deterrent to frighten into sub- 
mission the possible offender. In school we also have the 
love of the teacher and perhaps even the love of the prin- 
cipal serving to make the pupils eager to win and hold 
that love by abstaining from any action which might give 
the teacher or the principal disquietude or sorrow. 

In school we do find, though more rarely, pupils who 
are striving to do the right thing and to avoid the wrong 
thing because they are controlled by self-imposed ideals 
of conduct which serve by acting upon their own self- 
respect to make them honestly eager to do the right 
thing at all times whether observed or not. However 
rare may be the cases of pupils who at all times and under 
all circumstances act in compliance with such high mo- 
tives, still no plan of self-government will succeed which 
does not assume the possibility of such an ultimate con- 
dition for all the pupils of any school. And yet any plan 
which assumes the probability of any such conditions be- 
coming general, is even more surely doomed to failure. 

If, without binding ourselves to the acceptance of any 
theory, we merely assume that our pupils resemble in 
the adolescent strivings toward self-government a type 
not far different on the whole from the members of some 
partially civilized race, we may be nearer a solution of 
our difficulties than if we assume them to be little twenti- 



330 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

eth century citizens awaiting only the necessary years for 
complete absorption into our present-day civilization. 

A plan which assumes only the possibilities of growth 
to a fully civilized state has at least the merit of not ex- 
pecting much of its young members, while on the other 
hand, a plan which endeavors to force the forms of 
adult self-government upon immature adolescents is apt 
to meet with no more success than would accompany 
an attempt to put any half-civilized race upon a truly 
modern representative self-governing basis. 

Other things being equal, those plans of government 
which in the evolution of civilization have proved their 
fitness for the partially civilized, may on the whole 
most nearly approach our adolescent needs. The recap- 
itulation theory may be abandoned, but from it we may 
still salvage much to help us here, for surely there is a 
parallelism between the savage and the adolescent, 
whether or not it be purely accidental. 

Through the possession of some special qualifica- 
tions of strength and skill and insight the savage 
leader first gains his position of authority; later 
his descendants by physical, mental and material 
inheritance may establish an hereditary monarchy of 
small or great proportions, but at the beginning there 
is no line of succession and the field is open to 
any man who can lead. This leader shows in his 
person and in his conduct traits of character to which all 
the tribe aspire, but which on the whole they as indivi- 
duals do not personally possess. Possibly without formal 
choice or election the man who most nearly represents in 
his person the aspirations of the tribe or clan becomes at 
first informally the leader of the group. 

So in the voluntary associations of modern adoles- 
cents the youth who most nearly represents the kind 



PUPIL SELF-GOVERNMENT 331 

of fellow that all would like to be, becomes without any 
formal election, the acknowledged leader of his coterie of 
friends. When the aspirations of the group are toward 
crime, as they unfortunately sometimes are, the gang 
leader is he who most nearly represents the daring crim- 
inal that each of the group earnestly desires to become. 
When on the other hand, the aspirations of the group are 
toward the highest ethical development that their racial 
progress makes possible, their leader will be one who 
most nearly in his person embodies the aspirations of this 
rapidly developing group. 

The aspirations of boys and girls of junior high school 
age, are but slowly developing toward unselfish and 
altruistic ideals. The normal youngster of ten or 
eleven is in many ways remarkably like a savage and not 
a high-grade savage at that, however lovable individu- 
ally he may actually be. As a candidate for self- 
government he is infinitely inferior to a wild tribesman 
of the Congo. Any form of city or state government by 
ten-year-olds is simply unthinkable, and yet it is upon 
children not much higher that we of the junior high 
school must build our rudimentary beginnings. 

The first step toward self-government, if our cursory 
review has led us correctly, is the gradual establishment 
of a unity of aspiration in the minds of our pupils. Here 
we may later seek to implant other ideals which we hope 
for, but we must build our work upon aspirations that 
normally and really exist in the minds of a majority 
of healthy youngsters of adolescent age. 

Not long ago a considerable cash prize was offered 
for the most normal and natural code for boys of ado- 
lescent age. The winner's code was published and was 
found to agree in almost every detail with the laws of 
the Boy Scouts of America (and of the World) . Probably 



332 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

no better code of boy-morals exists than that of the 
Boy Scouts. 

A plan that has been tried and found successful has 
for its fundamental basis the Boy Scouts Laws. This 
is the body of aspiration which the school endeavors 
to build upon and to use in creating the growth toward 
self-government. This plan of self-government in its 
inception makes the entire school a modified and 
adapted Boy Scout troop. It selects for leaders (a most 
coveted and eagerly sought-after honor) those boys who 
in their person, in the judgment of teacher and pupil, 
most nearly approximate the description of an ideal 
Boy Scout as stated in their creed. 

Such a creed when adapted for the use of the school 
may read as follows: 

The Speyer Creed (as adopted unanimously by the 
boys of Speyer School) : 

1. A Speyer Boy is Trustworthy 

His honor is to be trusted. If he were to violate. his 
honor by telling a lie, or by cheating, or by not doing 
exactly a given task, when trusted on his honor, he is 
not a real Speyer boy. 

2. A Speyer boy is Loyal 

He is loyal to all to whom loyalty is due — his teacher, 
his home, his parents, his country. 

3. A Speyer boy is Helpful 

He is ready to help persons in need at any time, to share 
the duties of home and school. He does one good turn 
to somebody every day. 

4. A Speyer boy is Friendly 

He is a friend to all and a brother to every other Speyer 
boy. 

5. A Speyer boy is Courteous 

He is polite to all, especially to women, children, old 
people and the weak and helpless. 

6. A Speyer boy is Respectful 



PUPIL SELF-GOVERNMENT 333 

He respects and obeys his parents, teachers, leaders and 
all other duty constituted authorities. He respects 
the convictions of others in matters of custom and re- 
ligion. 

7. A Speyer boy is Cheerful 

He smiles whenever he can. His obedience to orders 
is prompt and cheerful. The harder the task the glad- 
der his heart ! 

8. A Speyer boy is Thrifty 

He does not destroy property. He works faithfully, 
wastes nothing, and makes the best use of his oppor- 
tunities. He saves his money so that he may pay his 
own way, be generous to those in need and helpful to 
worthy objects. 

9. A Speyer boy is Brave 

He has the courage to face danger in spite of fear, and 
to stand up for what is right against the coaxings of 
friends or the jeers or threats of his opponents and 
defeat does not down him. 
10. A Speyer boy is Clean 

He keeps clean in body and thought, stands for clean 
speech, clean sport, clean habits and travels with a 
clean crowd. 

No attempt can profitably be made to introduce all 
these ten desirable ideals at one time ; indeed their origi- 
nal adoption took nearly an entire school year. One by 
one the various ideal traits were developed by the boys 
themselves and only seized upon for discussion and later 
adoption when presented by the boys acting on their own 
initiative. 

Once formulated, however, the whole influence of the 
school — principal, teachers, parents, graduates, upper 
class boys — is brought to bear upon each new entering 
group as it is admitted. From the very start the new 
comer is made to feel that he is being admitted to a group 
where the older and wiser fellows have laid out an ideal 
for themselves which he as a new comer is bound to 
study and to gradually adopt. 



334 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

If a school is to avoid being kept at work forever 
building up an ideal which never reaches a stage where 
it functions in the development of leaders, it must make 
sure that no end of pains be spent in soon converting 
each new entering group to the ideals of their older school- 
mates. To that end a strong and powerful school tradi- 
tion must be built up so that boys even before they enter 
will learn something of the ideals of the school of which 
they may become a part. Once the new comers are 
enrolled, a series of meetings is held at which the boys 
will be told not by teachers, but by chosen leaders 
among the older boys themselves, what the school creed 
is and how it came to be adopted. No end of trouble 
can be created by the over-zealous teacher who seeks to 
impose as his own the ideals which the boys have 
adopted. The teacher's part is to give the older pupils 
such frequent opportunity as may be needed to put over 
the deals they believe to be the worthy ones for all the 
school. Thus from the start the body of aspirations 
which we hope the new comers will adopt as their own, 
comes to them from one of their own kind, only one 
presumably older and wiser than they are. 

The teacher must never be led into an argument on the 
school ideals in which he is put in the position of defend- 
ing the ideals the school has chosen. If there are ob- 
jections raised — and indeed they may be welcomed at 
the start — not the teacher, but a duly recognized boy- 
leader from the upper classes is the proper one to answer 
the objector. The teacher merely arranges the time and 
place for the necessary explanation. The teacher's po- 
sition may be put in words as follows: 

"The older boys of the school have selected for themselves 
•certain ideals (and I know them by heart) which they think the 
best possible for all of us. As a teacher of this school I am in 



PUPIL SELF-GOVERNMENT 335 

honor bound to these boys to help them realize their own ideals, 
but for you new comers who have not subscribed to these ideals 
as yet, I can do nothing more than to give you the oppor- 
tunity of hearing the older boys tell you why they have unan- 
imously adopted these ideals for this school." 

The teacher's other opportunity for advancing the 
school ideals comes in his selection of boys for various 
minor posts of honor who (in so far as he can discover 
the truth) appear to approximate in their behavior the 
ideals for which the school-body stands. 

Leadership 

Closely connected with the school Creed is the matter 
of leadership which is the one test of the success of the 
self-government plan. 

If the boys select for their leaders those who will dis- 
charge their duties in the spirit of the Creed then every- 
thing possible has been accomplished. To safeguard the 
interests of the school each class teacher is given the 
right (which the w T ise teacher will rarely use) of suspend- 
ing from office at once any leader whose actions seem to 
endanger the welfare of the class. Mere weakness, how- 
ever, should rarely be a cause of suspension — not at 
least until the teacher has tried by every means at his 
disposal to develop the w r eak leader's highest possibilities 
of strength. If finally all efforts of the teacher fail to 
develop in the weak leader the qualities necessary for 
his success, the teacher may bring the matter to the atten- 
tion of the class and ask the election of a new T leader. In 
possibly ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the class will 
elect a new and stronger leader, but in the hundredth case 
the class may support the weak leader. In such a case 
the teacher may suspend the leader and report his reasons 
to the Leaders' Club w r here the better judgment of the 
selected group can be trusted. 



336 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

Experience shows that no teacher worthy of his po- 
sition in the school will ever fail of practically unani- 
mous support in the Leaders' Club save in the one pos- 
sibility of his actually being grossly in the wrong. In 
such a case we will all agree that he does not deserve 
and should not receive support from any source. 

Before we discuss the Leaders' Club — the heart and 
soul of a self-governing adolescent school — we may 
briefly consider some of the leaders that a class may well 
select — and the duties with which these leaders may be 
charged. 

But as we begin it is well to note that the teacher, while 
he does not participate in the elections, can strongly 
influence the elections for good by describing rather 
carefully the type of boy that in his opinion will best 
serve the class if elected to the position in question. 

For the following partial list of leaders I am indebted 
to Mr. Abraham Rosenthal and to Miss Bertha Luchs 
who, with others at Speyer School, first worked out the 
positions and duties hereinafter described. 

Positions Boys 

1. Class Leaders 2 

2. Attendance Leaders 2 

3. Home-work Leaders 2 

4. Text -book Leaders 2 

5. Room Leaders 2 

6. Blackboard Leaders 2 

7. Bulletin Leaders 2 

8. Decoration Leaders 2 

9. Coat Room Leaders 2 

10. Two-minute Drill Leaders 2 

11. Health Leaders 2 

12. Excursion Leaders 2 

13. Lunch Room Leaders (number variable) 

14. Hall Leaders 

15. Reception Leaders 2 



J 



PUPIL SELF-GOVERNMENT 337 

To Develop and Encourage the Growth of all 

Leaders 

The best leader knows the "Speyer Creed/' lives it, 
practices it and fights for it. He constantly emphasizes 
the importance of adhering to all that the Creed stands 
for. (Therefore the leader must know his Creed and 
understand it. The teacher must also know and under- 
stand it.) 

The real leader is natural. He is at all times friendly, 
courteous, kind and respectful. "To help in advancing 
others" is his motto. 

The thoughtful leader prepares his program of activi- 
ties beforehand, so that he may at all times keep his class 
actively interested. He sees that no boy is wasting his 
time. 

The resourceful leader meets the situation. He does 
not wait to be told what to do. An unforeseen situation 
is but another opportunity for testing his ability. 

The helpful leader notices everything of interest to his 
fellows. He makes his class aware of what others 
are doing for the school welfare. 

The able leader commands in a firm, distinct, "mean- 
what-I-say" tone. His orders indicate just what he 
wishes done. He sees that any orders that are given are 
carried out. 

The wise leader is alert for suggestions that might im- 
prove his work. He often reviews progress made. He 
does not forget to thank those who have helped him. 

The successful leader makes every fellow count as a 
link in the claim of his success. Only those fellows that 
demonstrate self-control, courage, clean-mindedness and 
practice of the Speyer Creed, are strong enough to be one 



338 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

of his links. A weak link endangers his whole chain. 
Therefore he strives to bring every one in his class into 
earnest, active cooperation. 

1. THE CLASS LEADER (AND VICE-LEADER) 

1. At no time does the class leader's responsibility 
cease. He looks after the appointed leaders to see that 
each checks up his responsibility. He has the right to 
appoint assistants to help him in his work. 

2. It is understood that the leader when not working 
actively falls in line with the rest of the class thus set- 
ting an example of cooperation. He is under the full 
authority of the leader in charge whether it be in class, 
on excursions, or at assembly. 

3. At the class meeting each leader reports upon his 
work so as to give the group the opportunity to suggest 
whatever may strengthen the cooperative spirit and sense 
of responsibility of the class. 

4. The president, who is the chief class leader calls a 
Class Leaders Meeting, under the supervision of the 
official teacher, once every fortnight for the purpose of 
checking up the individual leader in his attitude toward 
the responsibility he has undertaken. The purpose of 
this meeting is also, through the help of the leaders, to 
strengthen the authority of the chief leader, and if need 
be, to point out and eliminate weaknesses, that he may 
have developed. 

2. ATTENDANCE LEADERS 

1. Fill in attendance and absence on blackboard be- 
fore 9 a. m. and before 1 p. m. 

2. Rule up the section board according to a definite 
form. 



PUPIL SELF-GOVERNMENT 339 

3. Fill in the day's record in the Section Book. 

4. Carry the Section Book from class to class. 

5. Place it on the teacher's desk when class enters 
the room for period. 

6. Give it to official teacher at noon and at 3 p. m. 

7. Take minutes of class meetings and report at 
next meeting. 

8. Take minutes of Leaders Meetings and report to 
class at its own class meeting, the work done. 



3. HOME WORK LEADERS 

1. Keep home work. 

2. Examine and check up in book or chart the home 
work of each pupil. 

3. Find out why the pupil has not done work. 

4. Rouse student who fails to bring in work to do 
better next time. 

5. Keep list of class in book or chart. 

6. At class meetings report to class any boy who has 
failed to do his home-work twice in succession and also 
pupils having excellent records. 



4. TEXT BOOK LEADERS 

1. Keep a list of class on book or chart. 

2. Check up the number of books that are brought 
to school — put cross against those pupils who fail to 
do this. 

3. Check up books that have been recovered — put 
cross against those who have not recovered lost books. 

4. Check up books that are labelled, cross those that 
are not. 



340 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

5. Report at class meeting any pupil who has failed 
to live up to his duty twice in succession as well as those 
who have excellent records in care of books. 

6. Report to class leader at end of month the record 
of each student in this respect. This report is to be 
made under the heading of responsibility. 

7. Give credit to those pupils who use other helpful 
books in addition to the regular text-books. 

8. Determine in what ways another text-book that is 
used, whether borrowed from the library or from a 
friend, is better than the one used at school. 

5. ROOM LEADERS 

1. Make a list of students that sit in their section. 

2. At noon and three o'clock examine the aisles 
and desks of sections to see that desks contain no paper 
and that floor is clean. 

3. Check up pupils who have clean desks and cross 
those that have not. 

4. At class meetings give report on those that have 
excellent records and those who have twice failed to clean 
up. 

5. Try to raise class standard of neatness — praise 
the excellent students and encourage them to do better. 

6. BLACKBOARD LEADERS 

1. Wash boards at noon and at three o'clock. 

2. Clean board rubbers at noon and at three. 

3. Put chalk and board rubbers away at noon and 
at three. 

4. Erase whatever is on the board at end of period 
unless teacher wishes otherwise. 






PUPIL SELF-GOVERNMENT 341 

7. BULLETIN LEADERS 

1. Provide a suitable bulletin board. 

2. Collect material to be posted. 

3. See that whatever is put on the bulletin board is in 
good form (well written, clean and worth while) . 

4. See that as soon as bulletin has lost its usefulness, 
it is removed from the board. 

5. Make out all reports of class that are to be posted 
on walls of class room. 

8. DECORATION LEADERS 

1. Arrange all pictures, engravings, banners, plants, 
etc., neatly in simple manner and pleasing to the eye. 

2. Encourage the bringing of wall decorations, win- 
dow curtains, pictures, vases, stands, plants, flowers, etc., 
to make the room cosy and attractive. 

9. COAT-ROOM LEADERS 

1. Keep coat-room and closets neat and clean. 

2. See that everything is in proper place. 

3. Take stock of supplies and inform the teacher 
when supplies are needed. 

10. TWO MINUTE DRILL LEADERS 

1. Give orders with spirit for the drill. 

2. Give command: pause; count. 

3. Drill— Breathing. 

Stretching 
Bending 

4. Set a high standard by accepting only the best. 

5. Check up the best and cross those that need im- 
provement. 



342 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

6. Arouse the class to high standard of work. 

7. Vary the exercise with the permission of the Di- 
rector of Physical Education. 

11. HEALTH LEADERS 

1. Arrange alphabetical lists of class in note book. 

2. Examine pupils every morning before nine o'clock 
— watch for combed hair, clean ears, clean necks, clean 
hands, clean finger nails, clean clothes and shined shoes. 

3. Check up on points under (2) in book. 

4. Make wall chart of points in book. 

5. Check up class records on this chart every week. 

6. Report at class meetings the students having excel- 
lent records and those who have failed more than twice 
in succession. 

7. Talk things over with boys or girls who have failed 
in hygiene or those who are Nutrition 3 or 4. 

8. Try to arouse class to high standard of personal 
hygiene. 

12. EXCURSION LEADERS 

1. Collect money from each pupil in each group. 

2. Give money to head leader or teacher. 

3. Arouse the group to a sense of gentlemanly be- 
havior when on the street, on the cars, at the place- 
visited. 

4. Impress upon the group to be inconspicuous, to- 
talk softly, to enjoy themselves, to sit quietly in the 
cars, to be friendly and to remember fooling and righting 
are entirely out of place. 

5. Keep the group together; see that nobody lags 
behind to buy something. 

6. When the destination is reached see that the group 
follows the instruction of the teacher. 






PUPIL SELF-GOVERNMENT 343 



Pupil Cooperation in the Work of Their Leaders- 

1. If a lack of cooperation is ' evidenced by the class 
toward any leader, that leader, if he has handled the sit- 
uation to the best of his ability, and has been unsuccess- 
ful, promptly reports the condition to the class teacher. 

2. The teacher discusses conditions with class to dis- 
cover the cause of the disturbance and why it is failing 
to cooperate with its own freely chosen leader whom it 
promised to support. 

3. Gross or persistent disorder on the part of indi- 
viduals is referred to the Leaders' Club. 

4. By constantly calling the attention of the class 
to what Speyer Spirit stands for and means, the care- 
ful leader forestalls any attempt at disorder. He does 
not fear the trouble maker but courageously calls to his 
attention the possible results of a lack of cooperation. 

5. In all cases of discipline the leader acts with de- 
cision and promptness, first, making sure that he has 
isolated the individual offenders, second, that he knows 
exactly the nature of the offender and the offense. As 
a rule he does not deem it wise to punish the class for the 
misconduct of individuals. 

Observations for Marking by the Leaders 

1. Each leader marks the pupils according to how 
they live up to their responsibility under his particular 
supervision. (Home work, books, health, etc., etc.) "1" 
or "2" for excellent, "3" if it is passable, but is not up to 
the highest standards, "4" if not satisfactory, and "5" if 
extremely defective. 

2. Control is checked up by the class leaders (halls, 
dismissals, class unsupervised, etc.) 



344 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

3. All leaders at end of month give average mark 
of pupils to class leaders who average all and give the 
teacher the final mark for each student. 

4. The Bulletin leader makes an honor roll contain- 
ing names of the excellent. This list is placed in the class 
room. 

5. Students listed for five consecutive months receive 
due credit towards Speyer "S" (elsewhere explained). 

For the Teacher 
Growth of the Leader 

1. Sum up the elements of leadership to your class. 
Give some concrete examples wherein the qualities you 
deem most desirable will prove of benefit, viz.: ability 
along certain lines, impartiality, poise; stress the ideals 
of an ideal Speyer boy. 

2. Do not yourself designate any leader. From your 
description the class may choose the boy embodying the 
qualities of leadership. Do not be discouraged if your 
choice is not elected. His unpopularity may be fully 
warranted for some reason unknown to yourself. 

3. Make the defeated candidates for leader feel that 
the nomination itself was an honor. The real test of their 
ability is through the opportunity for hearty, active, 
cooperation with the elected members whom they as 
assistant leaders play a major part in aiding. 

4. Make your platform unmistakably plain. The 
leaders of their choice, whom they promise to respect, 
obey, cooperate with in every way, are to have the full 
support of the Faculty and the leaders of the entire school. 
A leader betraying his trust, or a pupil who is not co- 
operative, should find himself arrayed against every 
leader, pupil and Faculty member. 






PUPIL SELF-GOVERNMENT 345 

Selection of Responsibilities 

List each boy in your class and analyze each individ- 
ual's traits, characteristics, positive elements. Deter- 
mine the desirable activities that you think he can do or 
would like to do ; find some work for him that will keep 
him busy and at the same time develop a desirable qual- 
ity. Continue to add responsibility as long as he secures 
the desired results. Be exacting and demanding. Take 
into consideration any physical defects, weaknesses or 
peculiarities, assignments from other teachers, demands 
at home, neighborhood associates. Counteract or util- 
ize their influence. (See caution below.) 

Assignment of Responsibility by the Teacher 

1. Assignments of various responsibilities of the 
various leaders are a test of your appreciation of the 
leaders' capabilities. 

2. Each leader is given unmistakable instructions 
for which he is held strictly accountable. 

3. No dispute should arise as to the functions dele- 
gated to the various leaders, for each leader knows just 
what he should do. 

The Support of the Leaders by Their Class and 
Class Teacher 

1. The class helps the leader carry out the respon- 
sibility he has undertaken. It understands that work is 
necessary for success. 

2. Consider nothing permanent. There is always room 
for improvement. 

3. The teacher who has every pupil strive to help 



346 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

the class leader is himself more efficient. The aid of the 
ablest, most cooperative and loyal group of assistants 
has been gained. 

4. The teacher always supports the class and the 
leader. The game of leadership is fair and hard, but is 
in itself the greatest reward. 

5. The teacher is firm and exacting in demands at 
all times. 

6. Cooperation and harmony exist by having a real 
acquaintance with each individual pupil. 

7. The able . teacher maintains the smooth temper, 
a spirit of enthusiasm and optimism and though dig- 
nified and firm, is always approachable. 

CAUTION. 

No one pupil carries too many responsibilities. With 
the exception of the Class Leader no pupil carries more 
than one major responsibility. Each pupil, so far as 
possible, is delegated to do something. (14 X 2 = 28 of- 
fices). 

Apparent Lack of Leadership, or Failure in the Plan 

1. Do not forget that "boys is boys," inconsistent, 
irrepressible, full of mischief, boisterous, emotional and 
sympathetic. 

2. The weak leader is given the opportunity to de- 
velop strength. Keep after him, help develop his 
responsibility ; we must assist him till he becomes strong 
enough to work alone. 

3. The cooperation of the teacher is very necessary. 
Responsibility cannot be given to the pupil, who may be 
expected to carry out what he is told to do without able 



PUPIL SELF-GOVERNMENT 347 

supervision. The teacher follows up the leader at all 
times. Sympathy and understanding are strong factors 
in developing the leader. The situation is a very deli- 
cate one, for the boy must feel that he is carrying the 
responsibility. Be an optimist. Do not be discouraged 
by failures. 

After some six years of experimentation the Leaders' 
Club of Speyer School — the pupil self-governing body 
— finally crystallized its rules of procedure in the con- 
stitution which follows. 

Let it be understood that this constitution did not 
spring fully formed into existence — in fact, for three 
years or so the constitution of the Leaders' Club was an 
altogether sketchy and hazy affair dependent upon unwrit- 
ten laws which were being built up quite as much, if 
not more, than upon any written charter. Even in its 
"final form the constitution lays no emphasis upon rights 
of pupils to self-government. 

The constitution then is submitted, not as a model of 
completeness in any particular, but rather as an interest- 
ing exhibit of the Speyer boy's idea of a working con- 
stitution for present needs, six years after the club was 
first organized. 



THE CONSTITUTION OF THE LEADERS' 
CLUB OF SPEYER SCHOOL 

Proposed, Ratified and Adopted, Feb. 23, 1921 

Article I. Name. This organization shall be known as, 
"The Leaders' Club of Speyer School" 

Article II. Objects. The objects of this organization shall 
be 
(a) To promote a spirit of cooperation between individual 



348 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

and individual; 

(b) To promote a spirit of cooperation between individual 
and class; 

(c) To promote a spirit of cooperation between individual 
and school; all of which must lead to the cooperation 
of every pupil working for the highest ideals of schol- 
arship, athletics and social activity in Speyer School. 

Article III. Membership. • 

Sec. 1. There shall be two classes of members: 

(a) Class Leader Members. 

(b) Petition Members. 

Sec. 2. Class Leader Members shall be the two leaders 
(President and Secretary) elected by the members 
of a regular class. 

Sec. 3. Petition Members shall be those pupils of the 
Speyer School who have been elected to member- 
ship after the following procedure: 

1. Application for Petition Membership in "The 
Leaders' Club of Speyer School" shall be presented 
in writing to the Chairman of the Membership Com- 
mittee. 

2. The letter of application shall contain a brief 
statement or description of three "conspicuously 
praiseworthy" acts performed during the month pre- 
ceding application, for the good of the class or of 
Speyer School. 

3. Each of the "conspicuously praiseworthy acts" 
is to be attested to by a member of the faculty, or by 
two members of the Leaders' Club" not more than 
one of whom shall be in the applicant's official 
class. 

Article IV. Officers. 
Sec. 1. The officers of the Leader's Club shall be, 

1. President 3. Secretary 

2. Vice-president 4. Treasurer 

Sec. 2. Election of Officers. Officers of the Leaders' Club 
shall be elected and installed at the meetings held 



PUPIL SELF-GOVERNMENT 349 

during the last week of December and May. Officers 
of the Leaders' Club shall retain office until their suc- 
cessors have been installed. 
Sec. 3. Duties of Officers. 

1. The President shall preside at all meetings, un- 
less prevented from doing so. 

2. The Vice-President shall preside in the absence 
of, or at the request of the President. 

3. The Secretary shall keep a record of the min- 
utes of all meetings, and shall conduct correspond- 
ence for the club. 

4. The Treasurer shall keep a record of all moneys 
received and disbursed, including the funds of the 
General Organization, and all other moneys that shall 
come under the supervision of the "Leaders' 
Club/ 7 A member of the Faculty, designated by the 
Leaders' Club shall be Treasurer. It shall be the 
Treasurer's duty to submit a monthly statement to 
the Leaders' Club. 

Article V. Meetings. 
Seel. A regular monthly meeting of the Leaders' Club shall 
be held at 3:15 P. M. on each Tuesday afternoon during 
the school year, except when Tuesday shall be a holiday, 
in which case, meeting shall be held on Wednesday 
afternoon. 
Sec. 2. Twelve members shall constitute a quorum for all 

meetings. 
Sec. 3. The Order of Business at regular meetings shall be : 

1. Call to order by the Chair 

2. Roll Call 

3. Reading of Minutes 

4. Treasurer's Report (Last meeting in each 

month) 

5. Reports of Committees 

6. Unfinished business 

7. New Business 

8. Election of Officers 

9. Good and Welfare 
10. Adjournment 



,350 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

Article VI. Committees. 
Sec. 1. The only standing Committee shall be the Member- 
ship Committee. All other committees shall be ap- 
pointed by the Chair. 

Sec. 2. The Membership Committee shall be constituted as 
follows : " * 

(a) The four officers of the Leaders' Club. 

(b) Two members of the Faculty elected by the 
Leaders' Club. 

(c) The Faculty Adviser. 

(d) One leader from each grade elected by the lead- 
ers of the grade. 

Article -VII . Resignations. 

Sec. 1. Ungentlemanly conduct, lack of leadership, or absence 
from three consecutive meetings without excuse 
satisfactory to the Leaders' Club shall be consid- 
ered just cause for requesting a member to resign. 
Sec. 2. Any member of the Leaders' Club shall be forced to 
resign : 

(a) When he ceases to be elected President or Sec- 
retary of -his class, unless thereafter he shall be 
regularly elected to Petition Membership. 

(b) On the written petition of three members of the 
Faculty. 

(c) On the written petition of one member of the 
Faculty with a majority of the leaders present 
at a regular meeting of the Leaders' Club. 

(d) By a three-fourths vote of the Leaders' Club. 

Article VIII. Amendments. 

This constitution may be amended when such amendment is 
proposed by two-thirds of the Class Presidents (upon 
the expressed will of the members of their classes) or by 
two-thirds of the members of the Leaders' Club; and 
when ratified by three-fourths of the members of the 
Leaders' Club, or by three-fourths of the pupils of 
Speyer School, provided, however, that no proposed 
amendment shall be ratified unless posted on the school 
bulletin board for at least one week before final action 
is taken. 



PUPIL SELF-GOVERNMENT 351 

Article IX. Initiation. 
It shall be required that every Class Leader Member, or 
Petition Member of the Leaders' Club shall subscribe to 
the following: 

"I believe that a Speyer Boy should be Trustworthy, 
Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Respectful, 
Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean. " 

As a pupil of Speyer School, and as a member of "The 
Leaders' Club of Speyer School," I shall consider it my 
duty, 

(a) To make every endeavor to live up to the Speyer 
Creed. 

(b) To set a good example to others, both in school 
and out. 

(c) To cooperate with my fellow-pupils in striving to 
do better those worthwhile things that I will try 
to do. 



BY-LAWS 

1. Each class shall elect a President, a Vice-President, a 
Secretary and an Assistant Secretary. The Vice-President shall 
attend meetings when the President of the class is unable 
to do so. The Assistant-Secretary shall attend for the Secre- 
tary in like manner. 

2. No pupil shall make application for Petition Member- 
ship whose Report Card shows a record "below average" in a 
subject or in a personal habit. 

3. The Membership Committee shall meet On the Monday 
afternoon preceding the last monthly meeting of the Leaders' 
Club, and shall draw up a list of nominations for member- 
ship, which list shall be voted on by the Leaders' Club, only 
at the last meeting of each month. 

4. Before an applicant for Petition membership can be nomi- 
nated by the Membership Committee, each of the acts presented 
as an evidence of leadership must be voted "conspicuously 
praiseworthy" by the members of the Committee. 

5. A pupil who is rejected for nomination by the Member- 
ship Committee shall not make application again within one 
month of the date of rejection. 



352 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

6. Upon vote of the members present at a regular meeting, 
the President of the Leaders' Club may order an offending 
member to leave the meeting. Such member shall not attend 
another meeting until a letter of apology has been read and 
accepted by the Leaders present at a following meeting. 

7. The President shall have the power to designate the chair- 
man of an appointed committee, but, if he shall see fit, he may 
direct the members of the committee to elect a chairman from 
among their number. 

8. Upon the advice of the Faculty Adviser, the President in 
appointing a committee shall request a member of the Faculty 
to serve as a member of the committee. 

9. The Treasurer shall make no disbursements, except upon 
vote of the Leaders' Club, and after the receipt of an order 
signed by the President and Secretary of the Leaders' Club. 

10. The financial records and books of the Treasurer shall be 
audited during the first week in January, and during the first 
week in May. An auditing committee of three leaders shall 
be appointed. The chairman of the auditing committee shall 
present a report of the audit to the Leaders' Club at the meet- 
ing following the completion of the audit. 

\1. The election of Petition Members to the Leaders' Club 
shall be the first item to be considered under New Business 
at the last meeting of each month. 

Finally, with all this formalism of constitution and 
by-laws, we must not forget that our boys, when natural, 
will behave as half-savage and we must make all due 
allowances for their possible lapses. Especially should we 
avoid beginning too early to codify or formalize our boys' 
efforts toward a system of self-government. 

Indeed it may be better if we never work out a con- 
stitution or by-laws at all until there comes an insist- 
ent demand for them to standardize procedure. Far 
better to have our leaders' club conducted by crude 
unwritten laws than to have it develop a group of little 
formal prigs who fail to represent what the pupils of the 
school really stand for in sincerity and truth. 



TEACHER PARTICIPATION IN ADMINISTRATION 353 

QUESTIONS 

1. Why have so many experiments in pupil self-government 

failed? 

2. To be of the greatest value how must pupils' ideals of con- 

duct be imposed ? 

3. What assumption may I make that will enable me to be 

more tolerant in my plans for pupil self-government? 

4. What makes a boy a leader in his group of friends? 

5. Where must I start to make my pupils select voluntarily 

the type of leader that I believe in? 

6. What boys' code of morals and conduct is the best one I 

know of? Can I repeat it from memory? 

7. What must I avoid in trying to have my pupils accept the 

code in which I believe? 

8. How can my pupils be led without my direct interposition 

to select their leaders wisely? 

9. How may succeeding groups be led to accept for themselves 

the ideals that earlier groups have built up? 
10. Can I name ten leaders with their duties, that might be 
established in my class? 



CHAPTER XX 

TEACHER PARTICIPATION IN JUNIOR HIGH 
SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

There is no real need in a discussion of junior high 
school problems to add to the natural complications of 
our study, the great problem of Teacher Participation in 
School Government. Yet if we are to make progress in 
all lines of school work as the result of our unique po- 
sition as the newest and best type of all American schools, 
we must be ready to meet all the newer problems of 
education that may be presented to us for our consider- 
ation. 

Surely an efficient, progressive, forward-facing junior 
high school can be organized and maintained today with- 
out involving ourselves in this problem of teacher self- 
government that the next generation will surely be forced 
to consider. However, as pioneers of modern times, we 
may nevertheless be losing an opportunity that because 
of our newness we are best fitted to grasp, if we fail at 
least to look over the territory that the next genera- 
tion will surely open up for settlement. 

So then if we decide to work-over this new field to- 
gether, let it be with the full understanding that we need 
not do so for the success of our present junior high school 
administration, but rather because such an added survey 
jnay put us, or our successors, in a position to profit by 
our explorations and discoveries in meeting and settling 
difficulties that surely lie not so very far ahead. 

354 



TEACHER PARTICIPATION IN ADMINISTRATION 355 

There has been a great deal of discussion and some 
rancorous comment on the need of democracy in edu- 
cation. It has been claimed that most school systems 
are an autocracy of the least considerate type. The 
superintendent, or the principal, lays down the law and 
the teachers are supposed to emulate the spirit of the 
Six Hundred — " Theirs not to reason why — theirs but td 
do or die." 

Yet we find from superintendents and principals come' 
most of the concrete suggestions for teacher participation^ 
in school government. In nearly every section of this 
country sperintendents are giving this subject of teacher' 
participation considerable time and attention. 

In discussing the theoretical effect of teachers' or- 
ganizations, actual or possible, upon the administration 
of the schools of any locality, there seems to be a division 
of opinion depending upon two major points of view. 
A review, therefore, of these two opposing views may be 
worth while, on three proposed kinds of teacher par- 
ticipation. 

first, teachers' organizations should be perfected for 
the purpose of — Influencing Public Opinion — of in- 
forming, interesting and influencing the (local) public as 
to what school legislation is necessary. Members of those 
organizations should be school missionaries. Possibly 
they may become the nucleus of a non-partisan political 
party as a "school" party for influencing city government 
in school matters. 

But teachers are not united among themselves, but 
divided by personal interests, personal grievances and 
personal ambitions; therefore they cannot present a 
united front. They are unwilling to make the effort or 
to spend the time to become truly acquainted with the 
social conditions of the parents for whom they workj 



356 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

all of which is necessary for the success of such a move- 
ment. They lack a true social interest in the welfare 
of their local community; they are ignorant of the 
aims, ideals and aspirations of its pupils and their par- 
ents. 

second, teachers should form an important branch 
of the Policy Forming group of any municipal school 
system. The superintendents should be left free to ex- 
ecute these policies. For example, the curricula (syllabi 
of instruction) should grow from the class-room where 
the teacher is in immediate contact with those who are 
being instructed. Artisan teachers should have no power 
in teachers' organizations or in policy-forming bodies of 
teachers. 

But most teachers work effectively at what they are 
told to teach; they have frequently no adequate knowl- 
edge of why they should teach the things they do. There- 
fore the judgment of the class-room teacher is not apt to 
be of large .constructive value. The bricklayer is an 
artisan who, taking his blueprints, builds his own wall 
skillfully. He has little idea of the reason for building 
this wall of a certain size and shape. The architect 
sees the inter-relation and use of every part of the 
structure on which he works. The architect has the 
professional viewpoint. Most teachers, however, are 
artisans only; they have not the vision to enable them 
to legislate wisely for their group as a whole. 

third, teachers should elect a Representative Assem- 
bly or Council which may be consulted by the Board of 
Education, and the Superintendent of Schools. One plan 
is to have the voluntary organizations nominate the 
candidates and then to refer these nominations directly to 
the schools for an election at large. Another plan is to 
have the teachers elect one representative for every 



TEACHER PARTICIPATION IN ADMINISTRATION 357 

hundred, two hundred, or three hundred teachers, then to 
have these representatives meet and elect the general of- 
ficers and the smaller executive committee or council 
"with power." 

But one reason for the general unwillingness to grant 
real power to such a council has been the experience 
that teachers are inclined to elect to such a council the 
ultra radicals, persons with a hobby or with a grievance. 
Furthermore, there appears to be among the more refined 
women teachers especially, a genuine shrinking from the 
publicity of a candidacy for election to a teachers' coun- 
cil. This may deprive such a council of some of the 
best material in the teaching force. 

And yet, when we consider all the propositions, we find 
that no provision has as yet been made, or even suggested, 
for entrusting definite legislative or executive power to 
any teachers' council. Such a council may be consulted, 
but need not even be considered. It is without legal 
power to compel any one in genuine authority to seriously 
consider any of its proposals. No superintendent as yet 
seems to have had the courage, or the temerity, to even 
propose a genuine experiment in teacher participation in 
school administration. 

Nevertheless, at the National Citizens Conference on 
Education held in May 1920, at Washington, the matter 
of teacher participation was considered to be of sufficient 
importance to warrant passing the following resolutions : 

"The attitude of the board of education and of its 
chief executive officers toward the teaching staff should 
be such that, while preserving inviolate their authority 
to make final decisions, it nevertheless encourages to the 
utmost the exercise of both the individual and collective 
initiative of the teaching staff, for in no other way can 
systems of schools be prevented from becoming unduly 



358 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

autocratic and therefore static and ineffective. In few 
cities are educational authorities drawing heavily enough 
upon the great reservoir of power stored up in the col- 
lective mind of the teaching body. Only through de- 
vising opportunity for a freer and fuller expression of 
opinion and of conviction on the part of its entire staff 
can this source of vitalizing and energizing power be 
tapped. 

"While the importance of thus securing and utilizing 
the experience and wisdom of teachers in matters of 
school procedure is recognized, it must also be recog- 
nized that policies once decided upon by those in final 
authority should be loyally supported, for in no other 
way can that cooperative effort upon which success 
depends be secured." 

We may believe that the insistance upon obedience 
to final authority as indicated in these resolutions rests 
upon the conviction earlier stated in our chapter that the 
mass of teachers, or the combined intelligence of the 
group, cannot be trusted to decide wisely, nor to act 
justly, in matters of serious moment. 

It may be possible that a large group of teachers can be 
momentarily stampeded by an appealing orator (we have 
known political conventions of hard-headed politicians 
to have been similarly affected) but the more one works 
in serious gatherings of professional teachers, the more 
one will become convinced that by and large, a group 
of experienced teachers will make no more mistakes of 
judgment than will the average superintendent in the 
same length of time. 

Particularly because the superintendent has to pass 
most frequently upon the cases of teachers who have 
a grievance and who seek to modify his decision on their 
case by political influence, the superintendent is chiefly 



TEACHER PARTICIPATION IN ADMINISTRATION 359 

busied with the affairs of teachers whose influence on the 
school system might be distinctly harmful. Consequently 
his point of view can scarcely escape the bias of his ex- 
perience. The sane, hard-working, devoted teacher has 
little occasion to visit the superintendent. She is involved 
in no difficulties needing the superintendent's intervention 
and in his unconscious survey of the possibilities of 
teacher participation the dependable teacher is often lost 
sight of because she is intent upon doing her own work 
and minding her own business. 

Teacher participation in school administration if it is 
to come wisely, must come from experiments, not in 
a school system at large, but in individual schools here 
and there where the principal is willing to assume the 
responsibility that such an experiment entails. 

If the experiment fails it may be abandoned, but if 
harm is done to the school or to the system before its 
abandonment, or even in the process of its evolution, 
then the principal alone, under our present educational 
system, can be called to account and made to pay the 
penalty. 

There is not then great wonder that the democratization 
of our schools comes slowly. The principal who tries 
it has his very position at stake if he fails, while if he 
succeeds he has but the moral or intellectual satisfaction 
of having done something worth while — which gets him 
no reward on earth at least. 

The man who will try to secure genuine teacher par- 
ticipation in school government must be profoundly 
convinced that the experiment is so much worth while 
that even his livelihood must be risked if necessary to 
accomplish the desired results. In the final analysis, 
he must be prepared for martyrdom if that be necessary 
— at least so he may see it in imagination. 



360 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

It is this fear of what may happen, or what might 
happen, that keeps many a principal from attempting 
to put in practice the procedure which he may be in- 
tellectually and morally convinced is the proper course. 
It is this terror of the unknown as a child afraid of the 
dark, that has kept many a principal from inviting his 
teachers to share with him the burdens and the respon- 
sibilities of managing the school. Together with this 
terror of the unknown is the principal's unquestioned 
knowledge that those of his force who call most loudly 
for participation in the management of the school are 
frequently those who, in his judgment, would be least 
able to be trusted with a voice or a vote in school man- 
agement. 

Finally, the safe and sane teachers, who are happy and 
successful in their work, feel but rarely any desire to par- 
ticipate in school management. If the proposition of 
teacher participation were, without discussion, put to a 
vote in most well managed and successful public schools, 
it would surely be defeated in the great majority of cases, 
if for no other reason than that the teachers trust their 
principal and have already problems of their own de- 
manding their full attention. 

So it is that while we are training future citizens in our 
modern schools, the institutions in which this training 
is given are, in their system of beneficent despotism, 
over a century behind the America of today. 

In a large, prosperous and respected private institu- 
tion of learning in one of our great cities, the president of 
the institution after considerable study and with some 
misgivings, decided that he would no longer conduct his 
faculty meetings after the old plan. This had consisted 
in his assembling the professors at a formally announced 
gathering at which he announced certain rules and regu- 



TEACHER PARTICIPATION IN ADMINISTRATION 361 

lations which the faculty was to accept and to carry out 
without discussion. 

This leader decided if Czardom were to end in 
political government, that it was high time for it to 
disappear from educational government as well. Con- 
sequently, in his monthly meetings, he no longer lectured 
to the faculty, laying down the laws they were to fol- 
low, but instead took to them for discussion and advice 
all the larger problems of good management that were 
causing him concern. These questions he hoped would 
be freely and frankly debated and the combined in- 
telligence of the group would finally be put in force, 
by their own voluntary adoption. 

At first there was, as might be expected, considerable 
diffidence shown on the part of many of the instructors 
toward expressing themselves freely, fearing lest they 
appear unduly officious, or even antagonistic. This feel- 
ing, however, wore away in time, to be replaced by a 
feeling of opposition to the new plan which arose from 
quite another reason. The voice of the majority, ex- 
pressed by their spokesman, one of the older men, was 
to this effect: "We are ready and willing to carry out 
your policies. All we want to know is what you want 
done. We do not wish to be bothered with discussing 
the whys and wherefores of administrative problems. 
We have "our own problems in our various departments 
— why add your problems to ours? We have enough 
to do with our own. Tell us what to do and we will do 
it gladly, but do not ask us to consider any more un- 
settled questions affecting the institution as a whole." 

The second illustration comes from a public school in 
New York City where the principal, a well-educated 
and efficient leader, attempted to adopt a similar demo- 
cratic plan for the teachers of his school. Instead of as 



362 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

before issuing unmistakable orders, though always care- 
fully worded as requests, he brought before his teachers' 
conferences proposed regulations concerning the teachers 
themselves as well as those concerning chiefly the pu- 
pils. Though there was no great enthusiasm over the 
change, there was, on the other hand, no active oppo- 
sition to it. The various matters of school concern 
were moved, seconded and either defeated or passed 
by the teachers at their stated meetings. If there was 
any change in spirit among the teachers themselves, 
it was in a little lessening of their accustomed defer- 
ence to the man in charge. In general, the school went 
along as before — no worthy regulations were defeated and 
practically all that were passed, passed by unanimous 
vote. 

However, the enthusiasm that this man expected 
from his teachers over this change in management — 
and he really gave the teachers the full and free right 
to pass or defeat all propositions concerning themselves 
— was never noticeable. No explanation was forthcom- 
ing until word reached him through an intimate friend 
to whom innocently one of his teachers had said: 
"Do you know that Mr. X. is getting so lazy this year 
that he makes his teachers do for him all the work that 
he is paid to do. He never bothers to make any rules 
for us or for our pupils, but makes us do all that work 
for him at our teachers' meetings. I think he is shirk- 
ing his responsibility and that the superintendent should 
be told about it. We have work enough to do without 
being compelled to do his work besides." 

Stories to the opposite effect may exist, but these two 
experiments, both known to be matters of unquestioned 
fact, show that if we are able to have any real form of 
self-government for teachers, we cannot hope, as a rule, 



TEACHER PARTICIPATION IN ADMINISTRATION 363 

for any great degree of enthusiasm over the change. 
Indeed one might go so far as to say that, on the whole, 
it is only the largely inefficient and unsuccessful teacher 
that imagines the iron heel of the principal pressed down 
upon her neck and so craves for power to remove it by 
taking from him, as she hopes, some of his professional 
authority. If no other good is obtained by teacher par- 
ticipation than the mere squelching of the inefficient or 
lazy teacher by her fellow workers, a great good is se- 
cured. As we all know, the most conspicuous source of 
school disloyalty is the teacher who is failing in her 
work. This unhappy and ill-adjusted person is most 
anxious to remove all suspicion from herself by em- 
phasizing the shortcomings of her supervisor under whose 
alleged mismanagement she is unable to accomplish the 
results that her natural ability would, if unhampered, 
undoubtedly secure. When the regulations checking her 
shortcomings and exposing her incompetency are passed 
by an almost unanimous vote of her fellow teachers such 
a self-satisfied individual is forced to turn her criticisms 
self-ward. Even though the tendency for most of us in 
teaching and supervising is to temper the wind for the 
shorn lamb, here is little intellectual sympathy in any 
teaching group for the shirk or the slacker. 

On the whole, one may say that the efficient principal 
need never fear that the good judgment of a majority of 
his teachers will be inferior to his own upon matters of 
school management. Indeed, one might go so far as to 
say that no principal, however wonderful in administra- 
tion, will fail to find genuine help from the discussion 
and advice of his teaching group as a whole, provided 
only that this group willingly accepts and enthusiasti- 
cally enters into the work and study of cooperative school 
management. 



364 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

If any principal should find a school really incapable 
of self-management, he would find at the same time a 
school incapable of satisfactory results under any type 
of administration. Such schools may possibly exist, 
though few if any of us have ever seen one. For the most 
part, any conspicuous failure in self-government would 
lead us to agree with General Grant, who is reputed to 
have originated the epigram " There are no poor regi- 
ments — only poor colonels." 

However, the compelling arguments for a cooperative, 
self-governing school come neither from the teachers nor 
the principal The teachers who seek self-government 
most vociferously usually do so in the hope of being 
freed from some wholly necessary and really undebat- 
able regulations. The principal who advocates most 
vigorously self-government may be accused of trying 
to get more work out of his already over-worked teachers. 

The only real arguments for a self-regulated school 
come from the American people as a whole, whose chil- 
dren give the schools existence. If we as parents wish our 
children to be educated as self-respecting, self-governing 
men and women, we have a right to demand that they 
be taught in institutions where are practiced the customs 
we hope they later will acquire. We may entrust instruc- 
tion in the rudiments of learning to slaves, but we can- 
not hope for character building and intellectual guidance 
for adolescents from men and women who do not and 
cannot govern themselves. 

At once some one will object to the possible opening 
of our higher schools through self-government to the 
secretly salaried agitator who endeavors to alienate our 
children from their natural allegiance to the land of their 
birth or of their parents' adoption. It may be claimed 
that this fomentor of civil strife, if not of treason and 



TEACHER PARTICIPATION IN ADMINISTRATION 365 

rebellion, will find an opportunity to spread his nefarious 
doctrines as a teacher in our schools unless repressed 
and removed by the autocratic hand of superior authority. 

Now there may be public schools where such treason 
finds support among a majority of the teachers. Yet no 
one of us has ever known of such a school in actuality. 
Indeed if such a school were to exist, it would be hopeless 
to think of repressing it by any exercise of authority save 
that of the Federal Secret Service. 

Quicker and surer than the action of any principal or 
superintendent would be the action of the self-governing 
school faculty. But once place upon the teachers of any 
school the responsibility of keeping their own ranks free 
from suspicion by bringing to trial those of their members 
suspected of disloyalty to flag and country and we may 
be sure that there will be no treasonable doctrines pro- 
mulgated in the instruction given at that school. We know 
beyond the necessity of further proof that the great bulk 
(probably all but one in a thousand) of our city and 
country public school teachers are true and loyal Amer- 
icans. One does not find a higher percentage than this 
in most boards of education, whether appointed or elected. 

However, our early steps in school self-government do 
not consider as yet any proposals to render teachers' ten- 
ure dependent upon the suffrage of their peers; those 
who oppose the extension of self-government for teachers 
on the grounds of possible disloyalty provide only 
an argument for its complete adoption. For our 
purposes, the chief matters to be considered are those 
purely local regulations left by common consent here- 
tofore to the fiat of the principal. Such matters may 
seem of little educational moment, but they concern 
mightily the spirit in which the school is conducted. 

The seemingly trivial question of the assignment of 



366 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

teachers to monitorial service outside their rooms, the 
more serious regulations of the fire drill, the time for 
mid-term tests or final examinations, the requirements 
for promotion, the rules governing the conduct of 
teachers during school hours or of the pupils when out of 
their class-room but inside the school grounds, all these 
have been from time immemorial promulgated as " orders 
from the office," yet they can become still more seriously 
observed if promulgated by a faculty that feels the seri- 
ousness of its responsibility. The crux of the whole 
matter lies in the genuine acceptance by the teaching 
body of voluntary serious responsibility as an accom- 
paniment of self-determination. 

This responsibility for the children and to the com- 
munity must be felt by each teacher in the group. To 
some, this responsibility will come as a pleasure, to others 
as a matter of indifference and to still others as an added 
burden. It is always possible, however, for a majority to 
secure pleasure from the exercise of added authority, even 
though that mean added burdens. It is not what we do, 
but what we do unwillingly, that tires us. Nothing that 
we do willingly is disagreeable. So it rests upon the 
principal of the school to convert his teachers as gradually 
as may be necessary to the necessity of self-government, 
and to do this he must act (and be accepted as one acting) 
not in his own or his teachers' interests, but wholly in 
the interests of the community and the -Nation. As a 
good American first, and second, as a good leader, he 
must build up an interest where one is lacking. This 
he may best do by moving slowly, by studying each step 
carefully in advance and by making sure that a reason- 
able degree of added pleasure is secured for his teachers 
in each forward step. 

The first step is not therefore autocratically placing 



TEACHER PARTICIPATION IX ADMINISTRATION 367 

authority in administrative matters in the hands of the 
teachers of any school, but rather, laying before the 
teachers in conference, the whole self-governing prop- 
osition. Both of the fiascos in teacher participation pre- 
viously related show, after, all, a lack of democracy that 
neither of the supervisors concerned seemed to appre- 
ciate. In both instances, self-government was thrust 
upon the teachers without their previous knowledge or 
consent. There was no question as to whether these 
teachers wanted self-government, were in need of it, or 
were willing to accept and share the responsibilities that 
their new freedom necessitated. 

The first true step then consists in discussing with the 
faculty the merits and defects of a self-governing schooL 
As a part of this discussion may come the division of 
matters of school administration into those upon which 
the teachers really desire to have a voice and a vote and 
those upon which the teachers prefer only the auto- 
cratic ruling of the principal. 

Indeed at the start the principal, who is, after all, the 
one most sure to suffer from any defects in the system, 
may wish to reserve to himself certain rights and priv- 
ileges which affect his tenure of position. The real 
difficulty will not, however, be one of curbing the lawless, 
but of interesting the patient and conscientious. 

Far from being the lazy principal that the teacher of 
our second episode considered him, the man who under- 
takes to put into operation any plan of cooperative 
school government assumes a double resoonsibility and 
in some lines at least must do double work. It becomes 
necessary for such a principal not only constantly to 
find the remedies for situations that demand his attention, 
but occasionally to convince the teachers that he super- 
vises, that the remedy he suggests or leads some one 



368 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

else to suggest, is the best one to be found under the 
circumstances. It was a far easier task for him to 
write his orders and check up the indifferent and for- 
getful. Yet to some the work of "checking up" is so 
distasteful that they will gladly undertake no end of 
other work if this burden can be lightened and under 
any working system of self-government that one burden 
is unquestionably made easier. 

On the contrary, the man who delights in giving orders 
without reasons, who is happier when all jump at the 
crack of his whip, who gets real pleasure from compel- 
ling others for their own good always let us assume — 
such a man will find a self-governing school a constant 
nightmare; and self-government, if attempted in his 
school will be almost surely foredoomed to failure. 

However, the true motive that should impel all princi- 
pals to consider seriously the self-governing school is 
neither to escape from distasteful duties, nor to exact 
more service from possibly already over-worked teachers, 
but the one great motive of sending from his school boys 
and girls better fitted to assume the rights and the obliga- 
tions of American citizens because of the atmosphere 
in which they are trained. 

The mere mechanics of school self-government may 
seem of little moment when the great principle itself is 
being discussed, yet it is in just this particular that many 
well intentioned movements fail. Sound as it may be 
in theory, we have too often seen self-government fail 
through faulty practice. It becomes therefore entirely 
worth our while to consider the steps that may be advis- 
able — one by one. 

The plan that is hereafter described is unquestionably 
capable of improvement yet it has this value at least: 
it has been in successful operation for several years. 



TEACHER PARTICIPATION IN ADMINISTRATION 369 

First of all, the desirability of having an advisory 
committee elected by the teachers as a whole is dis- 
cussed in open meeting — the principal first having 
consulted with some of the more active and energetic 
teachers on the advisability of such action. 

The reasons explained for such action may be, first, 
the general argument for teacher participation in the 
government of a public school in a democracy; second, 
which is more personally appealing, the need for an 
elected group to which teachers may come with sugges- 
tions, inquiries and complaints on matters of school 
government with less hesitation than to the principal 
direct. 

If this step finds favor by practically unanimous vote, 
the teachers are divided into several approximately equal 
groups by subjects, or by grades, and asked to elect from 
each group one representative to the principal's advisory 
committee. Depending upon the school — the degree of 
interest of the teachers and the actual usefulness of 
the principal's council —self-government may rest for 
a while at this stage before proceeding further. 

The main difficulty for one who has for years 
managed his school without let or hindrance is to actually 
invite this elected group into regular and serious con- 
ferences. Equally the difficulty for those who have for 
years found their work as pleasant and interesting as the 
principal could make it, is to regard their new positions as 
more serious than the perfunctory approving of the princi- 
pal's evident desires. 

Until these difficulties are overcome, it is useless to 
proceed further, but if the principal has persuaded his 
council of the necessity of taking their elected offices 
seriously, and has led them to see from the standpoint 
of the citizen the value of training in citizenship and 



370 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

self-government for themselves as a step in making 
their pupils ultimately better citizens, then another 
forward step, at least, is in part secured. 

In the meantime, the general monthly conferences 
are conducted about as before — with this main dif- 
ference — that the council is consulted in advance con- 
cerning the topics to be taken up in the conferences 
and that the council more and more assumes the re- 
sponsibility for seeing that the program is suited to the 
needs of the school. Equally, too, the council, as far 
as it is able, takes especial interest in seeing that the 
instructions given, or requests made, in the general meet- 
ing are followed in spirit as well as in letter by the 
teachers themselves. Not by by-law or school-board 
requirement, but of their own free will the teachers have 
given certain of their number superior rights and powers. 
As a proof of their own fitness to thus participate in 
self-government the teachers not elected to the council 
must learn to regard those so elected as superior in po- 
sition and authority. They must learn, in other words, 
to respect and to defer to their own representatives, 
as such. 

Gradually, as the council learns to be of real value 
to itself and to the school, the scope and power of the 
council is extended, though it may be years in some 
schools before this next step is found advisable. 

In the next stage of self-government this elected 
group of five or six still acts as the principal's advisory 
council; they meet subject to his call, or, when they 
think advisable, at the call of their own elected chairman. 
However, no matters are ever brought before the teachers 
as a whole until they have received the sanction of a 
majority of this smaller group. The teachers so elected 
serve for one year, or until their successors are installed. 






TEACHER PARTICIPATION IN ADMINISTRATION 371 

The duties of this group now are to pass, not only upon 
matters of common acceptance too trivial to warrant 
calling together the group as a whole, but also upon mat- 
ters too serious to be brought up for general discussion 
until they have been thrashed out in advance. The 
meetings of this group are held, whenever possible, 
during school hours as a means of decreasing the diffi- 
culty of cancelled engagements sometimes too frequently 
overlooked. Membership in this group is an honor to be 
everywhere recognized; officially this group becomes 
one of associate principals, though without individual 
authority as such. 

This board of associate principals, or principal's coun- 
cil, actually prepares, with the assistance of the principal, 
the program for each general teachers' meeting and shares 
the responsibility for the program's successful completion. 
If there are questions which the principal has carefully 
considered, he need not fear to entrust them to the good 
judgment of this advisory group, explaining, where not 
self-evident, his every reason for the reception he hopes 
for by the larger body. 

More and more the larger group of teachers is led 
to take some active participation in the daily effort 
to improve the work of the school. Heretofore they may 
have had the plan of procedure handed to them — first 
by the principal, then by the principal and his council 
— now they are asked to give more attention to working 
out for themselves the plans they will be expected to 
follow. 

By means of committees, carefully selected by the 
principal and his council, various duties are assigned 
to groups of from one to five teachers. A stated time- 
is announced for the reports of these committees and they 
are held strictly to account. Where they need help — 



372 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

books to be consulted, persons to be interviewed — 
dates for personal conferences are supplied in advance. 
The reports when ready are made to the general meet- 
ing and approved, adopted, or rejected, by the teachers 
as a whole. 

Some of the topics that are assigned to such com- 
mittees are: under administration — assignment of teach- 
ers to yard duty, provision for the noon hour, dates and 
plan for monthly and final tests, directions for the 
preparation of report cards and preparation of the com- 
mencement program. Under the more strictly pedagog- 
ical part of the work will come assignments on uniform 
grade plans, uniform monthly tests, project method 
plans for various grades and subjects, suggested devices 
for rapid oral reviews, the better use of the study period, 
making the assembly program help the class work, a 
plan for the exchange of help in the class room between 
any two subjects such as science and English. This 
list of topics is but an indication of some of the lines 
that may be followed with profit. 

When the committee reports have reached a stage 
worthy of highest commendation, when the teachers 
as a whole have become interested through self-activity 
and self-participation in the larger work of the school, 
it is but a simple step to as complete a form of self- 
government as the legal restrictions placed upon the 
officers of a school will allow. 

Yet many principals may hesitate at this last step 
and many superintendents will advise against it. In- 
deed it may be questioned as to whether any principal 
has the legal right to apparently abdicate his position, 
although he may be within his legal rights if he merely 
assumes and promulgates as his own the decisions of 
the group, though even this might be a bitter pill for some 
to swallow. 



TEACHER PARTICIPATION IN ADMINISTRATION 373 

Indeed we may as well admit that our teachers have 
never been trained in the normal schools or in the field 
to spend much time upon the why of what they are 
asked to do. We have not asked them to be profession- 
ally minded, let alone requiring them to be so equipped. 

However true may be the claims of the critics that 
those in authority use that authority to crush and repress 
the creative powers and the initiative of those they super- 
vise, our two earlier described verifiable episodes of 
attempted democracy in education will be more truthful 
pictures of the real school situation. 

And yet the tendency is toward a change. In dis- 
cussing this very tendency one* of our most prominent 
American superintendents says (the italics are mine) : 

"My ideal school principal is one who runs an open door 
office and who, by sympathetic supervision, invites and en- 
courages teachers to voice their best judgment with reference 
to the conduct of the school which the state and the munic- 
ipality have entrusted to their care. Whether or not such 
cooperation is secured through one device or another, such as 
is represented by a school council, grade conferences, or gen- 
eral conferences, is immaterial. Lest I be misunderstood, 
however, permit me to state that I am a very firm believer in 
definite responsibilities and centralized authority. The prin- 
cipal and not the individual teacher is the responsible executive 
in charge of the school. A laissez-faire policy that means 
headless, spineless, decentralized supervision may tempo- 
rarily satisfy radical minds, but is certain to lead to disaster." 

With this statement we are bound to be in full agree- 
ment, even though we may have failed, before reading the 
last sentence quoted above, to see that some schools 
might be forced to become self-governing solely through 
the principal's neglect of his required duties. 

However, the same superintendent goes further in his 
discussion to say (the italics are still mine) : 

* Dr. Wm. L. Ettinger, New York City. 



374 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

"To the extent that teachers have a real voice in the ad- 
ministration of the school, so that despite rigid conditions 
imposed by equipment, size of classes, license requirements, and 
other factors not easily controlled, the school, nevertheless, 
represents the working ideal of the majority as to what is best 
under existing conditions, the school is a model school." 

This is indeed a remarkably advanced step. As yet 
no other superintendent has had the courage to go so 
far. For there is only one kind of "a real voice" and that 
is the voice that can back up its words with deeds. 
In so far as any teacher is allowed "a real voice in the 
administration of the school" that teacher is a real part 
and parcel of the government itself. 

Finally "the working ideal of the majority" can, in 
the last analysis, only be determined by an actual show 
of hands. So in the model school of this superintendent, 
teachers are to have both a voice and a vote in order to 
determine what is best under existing conditions for 
their school to do or to abstain from doing. Surely the 
advocate of teacher participation could ask no more. 

With this endorsement let us consider the final step. 

In its completeness the self-governing school conducts 
its monthly teachers' meetings much in the spirit of the 
town meetings of early New England. The regular for- 
mal procedure of any civic or social body is followed. 

With the president (principal) in the chair, there is the 
roll call if necessary — or merely the noting of absent- 
ees — then the minutes of the previous meeting are read 
and approved. Under the head of correspondence, are 
read letters from the superintendent or from parents 
that need the attention of all the school. Next come 
the reports of committees and officers which may take 
up the greater part of the usual program. 

If the principal has a report to make he will make it 



TEACHER PARTICIPATION IN ADMINISTRATION 375 

as any member would — from the floor of the house, 
while the chairman of the council temporarily presides. 

Similarly, if under the heads of Unfinished Business 
or New Business the principal wishes to make a motion, 
he will do just as any presiding officer must do — resign 
his chair while he is speaking. More frequently the 
principal may find it wise to suggest to some members 
of the council, or through them to some members of the 
teaching staff, the making and seconding of questions 
for general discussion. The wise leader will also place 
upon the shoulders of his council the responsibility for the 
adoption of such motions as have previously gained their 
acceptance at a council meeting, but which may meet 
opposition of the open floor. 

So far as the strictly pedagogical part of any program 
is concerned, the best results have been obtained by 
having adopted a single line of work to be followed for 
a semester. Early in the school year a suggested list 
of topics for discussion and study may be distributed to 
the council and upon motion, the one that seems to be 
most productive of interest and value for that semester 
may be adopted at a general meeting by a majority vote. 

No matter how carefully the principal may have pre- 
pared his notes, no matter how eager he may be to ex- 
press his views, the thoughtful principal will, as chair- 
man, assign the preparation and the presentation of the 
various studies to be made to the teachers of his staff. 
If results in school work and spirit, rather than self- 
aggrandizement and self-glorification, are to be aimed 
at, the principal will submerge his personal views, except 
as he may employ them in assisting the committees, of 
one or more, to prepare the reports which they are to 
present to the general meeting. 

So this at last is our self-governing school in so far 



376 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

as the laws of the city and state permit it to be self- 
determining. No very great change, let us be frank, 
will be outwardly manifested over any school controlled 
by a beneficent despot. 

The same influence of the meddling politician who 
has a favorite to place on the rolls will be experienced. 
Those in higher authority still will step in, now and then, 
to over-rule the expressed will of the majority and at this 
time the self-governing school suffers more than it 
would have done had only the principal been over-ruled, 
because now the teachers also feel that other "iron heel" 
that only the principal knew before. 

Yet even from these rebuffs, the self-governing school 
rises like "truth crushed to earth" and soon resumes the 
even tenor of its way. 

And now at the end of our long discussion, some one 
may ask "Is it all really worth while?" The answer from 
those who have faithfully tried it is unqualifiedly, "Yes, 
it is unquestionably worth all it costs. It is worth it in 
the increased happiness of the teachers, in the increased 
quantity and quality of the work accomplished for the 
pupils, it is worth it more than all in the increased love 
and devotion the pupils feel toward their teachers and 
their school." 

Only to that extent to which our pupils will themselves 
be benefited, by being better trained for democracy in 
a school that is itself conducted on democratic lines, 
can we justify any departure from the older system 
which, while it had its faults, still had its undoubted 
merits too. 

It is for the sake of pupils and, in the last analysis, 
for the pupils alone, that we are warranted in adopting 
any form of teacher participation in school administra- 
tion. 



TEACHER PARTICIPATION IN ADMINISTRATION 377 

QUESTIONS 

1. What is the value of discussing teacher participation in the 

junior high school management? 

2. Why may this best be considered by junior high school 

teachers ? 

3. What are the most serious charges against present school 

management ? 

4. From what two kinds of teachers do these charges chiefly 

come? 

5. What is the effect of teacher participation on malcontents? 

6. Why may teacher participation almost double the prin- 

cipal's work? The teachers' work? 

7. What can justify assuming this double burden? 

8. What gradual plan for introducing teacher participation 

can I outline? 

9. How many years may it (will it) take to work out such 

a plan? 
10. What benefits may we expect the pupils will receive from 
such an administrative change? 



APPENDIX 

In the courses of study that are here given the three years 
work is divided into four divisions to agree with the plan fol- 
lowed at Speyer School of allowing the brightest pupils to 
attempt to cover three years work in two years. The course 
as printed is, therefore, a Rapid Advancement Course. 

The brightest pupils would cover the work of the "A" Term 
in one half of the school year or in twenty weeks of actual school 
work and the entire (A, B, C, D) work in two years. 

Average pupils would cover the work of the "A" Term in 
approximately thirty weeks and the entire (A, B, C, D) work 
in three years. 

Finally the very slowest moving classes might only cover the 
work of the "A" Term in an entire school year of forty weeks, 
and the entire (A, B, C, D) work in four years. 

MATHEMATICS 

Explanation — Though the various subjects arithmetic, alge- 
bra and geometry are frequently pursued side by side on differ- 
ent days of the same week, it is not practical to show this in 
the term plans. The plans following therefore show the work 
of each month subdivided and grouped by subjects, though in 
actual instruction the two or more subjects will be taught to 
the same class in the same week and occasionally in the same 
class period. 

Text: Junior High School Mathematics. Wentworth, 
Smith and Brown. 

"A" TERM 

ARITHMETIC 

First Arithmetic of the Home: 

Month Business forms: cash and household accounts. 

Percentage: three cases. Application to household 

economics. 
Reading gas and electric meters, 
379 



380 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

Second Arithmetic of the Store: 

Month Integers: addition, subtraction, multiplication — 
checking, short cuts in multiplication. 
Fractions: multiplication of fractions by integer, 
multiplication of mixed number by integer and by 
mixed number. 
Percentage: application to commercial discount. 
Bills, receipts. 
Third Business forms. Invoices. 

Month Problems. 

Arithmetic of Industry: 

Fractions: addition, subtraction, division. 
Business forms: pay roll. 
Problems. 
Arithmetic of the Bank: 
Savings. The general types of banks. 
Simple interest. 
Fourth Principle of compound interest. 
Month Bank discount. 

Business forms. Checks, promissory notes. 
Problems. 
Fifth Review. 
Month 

GEOMETRY 

First Geometry of form: 

Month Geometric figures: angles, triangles, quadrilaterals. 
Construction: triangles; isosceles triangles; equi- 
lateral triangles; perpendiculars; bisecting line, 
angle of angle equal to a given angle. 
Second Parallel lines. Dividing a line. 
Month Construction of geometric patterns. 
Drawing to scale. •' 
Proportions. Similarity of shape. Angles in similar 

figures. 

Similar figures in photographs. 
Pantograph. Symmetry. 
Third Plane figures formed by curves. 

Month Solids bounded by curved surfaces. 
Problems without figures. 
Geometry of size: 

Length. Practical measurements. 



APPENDIX 



381 



Fourth Estimate of areas: Area of rectangle, parallelogram, 
Month triangle, trapezoid, polygon. 

Fifth Review. 
Month 

" B " TERM 

GEOMETRY 

First Areas of polygons: rectangle, triangle, parallelogram, 
Month trapezoid. 

Ratio and proportion. Proportional numbers and lines. 

Similar figures: heights of inaccessible objects. 

Circles: radius, diameter, circumference, area. 

Volumes: square prism, cylinder. 

Curved surface of cylinder. 

Plastering and painting walls. Board measure. 

Metric measures: length, weight, capacit}^. 
Second Fixing positions of points. Positions on maps. 
Month Points equidistant from two points — distance of a 
point from a line. 

Position fixed by two lines. 

Points equidistant from two lines. 

Use of angles in fixing points. Problems without 
figures. 

Square root: factoring method. General method. 
Applications of square root 



ARITHMETIC 

Third Ordering goods. Invoices and bills. Personal accounts. 
Month Profit and loss: reckoning profit on the cost. 

Commercial discount. Several discounts. 

Short methods in multiplication. 
Fourth Foreign mone} r : shilling, franc, lira, mark, ruble. 
Month Metric system reviewed. Problems without numbers. 

Passenger rates: express rates, parcel post. 

Review. Problems without numbers. 
Fifth Buying tools : cotton industry, wood work, machine 
Month shop, baking industry. 



382 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

Interest; promissory note (interest on). 
Bank discount; proceeds, etc. 

ALGEBRA 

First The formula. Symbols. Simplifying algebraic ex- 
Month pressions. Evaluation of formulas. 

Statements and symbols. Need of formulas. 
Second Formulas in games, and in geometry. 
Month Formulas of areas of polygons, and of volumes. 

Formulas for circle, cylinder, cone, sphere. 
Third Formulas used in shops, in the home, in business. 
Month Equation: the unknown quantity; problems. 
Fourth Equation: solution of, by addition, subtraction, multi- 
Month plication or division. 

Graphs: value of graphs; bar pictograms, circular 
pictograms. Cartograms. 

Functional relations. Graph of tables. Interest and 
wage graphs. 

Graphs of formulas. Review. 

"C" TERM 

ALGEBRA 

First Multiplication: Negative multiplication. Special 
Month products. 

Division: Negative division. Express statements in 
form of equations. Problems of simple machines. 
Business. Symbols. Formulas. Rules. Order 
of operation: 1. Powers. Roots. 2. Multi- 
plication. Division. 3. Addition. Subtraction. 
Second Equations: Solving at sight. 
Month Axioms: Uses. Problems. 

Formulas used in Industries. 
Graph. 

Addition: Subtraction involving negative numbers. 
Third Multiplication: Division involving negative numbers. 
Month Terms used. 

Addition of polynomials: equations. 
Subtraction of polynomials: removal of parentheses, 
several symbols. 



APPENDIX 383 

Fourth Equations involving subtractions. 
Month Multiplication of polynomials. 

Square of sum or difference of two numbers. 

Square roots. 
Fifth Products. Factoring the difference of two squares. 
Month Special case. 

Product of two binomials. 

Factoring a quadratic trinomial. Cube of a binomial. 

Graphs. 

GEOMETRY 

First Terms explained: 

Month Lines. Point. Properties of straight line. Solid. 
Plane. Angles. 

Bisecting a line. 

Constructing an angle equal to a given angle. 

Bisecting an angle. 
Second Constructing perpendiculars. 
Month Construction of triangles. 

Judging by appearances. 

Axioms. Postulates. 
Third Congruent angles. Inferences. 

Month Theorem: Two sides and included angle. 

Inferences as to isosceles triangles. 
Fourth Theorem. In an isosceles triangle the angles opposite 

Month the equal sides are equal. 

Theorem. Two angles and included side. 

Congruence of triangles. Inferences. 

Theorem. Three sides (triangles). 

Theorem. Congruence of right triangles. 

Review of congruence. 

" D " TERM 
ALGEBRA 

First Multiplication of binomials. 
Month Factoring: cubes and trinomials. 

Division by monomial, binomial, polynomial. 

Division, fractions in quotient. 



384 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 



Fractions: reduction, signs, addition, subtraction, 
multiplication, division. 
Second Equations: simple and with fractions. 
Month Problems in simple equations. 
Simultaneous equations. 

Elimination by addition or subtraction. 
Elimination by substitution. 
Problems: simultaneous equations. 
Third Quadratic equations: Pure and affected, solved by 
Month factoring and by completing square. 

Formulas and general review. 

TRIGONOMETRY (Mere introduction) 

Fourth Functions of angles: Shadow reckoning. Tangent of 
Month an angle. Finding of tangents. Table of tangents. 

Measuring angles. Practical use of the tangent. 

Tangents. Sine of an angle. Table of sines. 

Sines. Function of an angle. Cosine of an angle. 

Cosines. Cotangent of an angle. Use: cotangent. 

Trigonometric tables. Complementary angles. 

Functions. Table of functions. Review. 
Fifth Review of algebra. 
Month 

GEOMETRY 



First List of postulates and definitions. 
Month Statements memorized and explained. 
Theorems: 

Vertical angles. 

Congruent triangles and inferences. 

Two sides and included angle. 

Isosceles triangle. 

Two angles and included sides. 

Three sides. 
Second Theorems: 
Month Congruence of right angles. 

Parallels cut by transversal. 

Alternate angles equal. 
Third Theorems : 
Month Equal parts of parallelogram. 



APPENDIX 



385 



Opposite sides equal. 
Two sides equal and parallel. 
Transversal and parallels. 
Angles of triangles. 
Fourth Theorems: 
Month Angles of polygon. 

Sum of exterior angles. 

Rectangles. 

Square of sum, square of difference, rectangle of 

sum and difference. 
Area of parallelogram. 
Area of triangles. 
Fifth Theorems: Area of trapezoid. 
Month Pythagorean theorem. 

Problems: bisect line, equal angles, bisect angles, 
perpendicular from point outside, or on the line. 
Theorems: Points equidistant from a line. 
Points equidistant from points. 
Method of finding locus. 



LITERATURE PLAN 



FOR INTENSIVE READING 



FOR CURSORY READING 



"A" TERM 

1. Study of a newspaper 

2. Use of a dictionary 

Select one. 
Treasure Island 1. Lady of the Lake 

Sohrab and Rustum 2. Christmas Carol 

Ancient Mariner 

"B" TERM 






1. Lewis Literature 

selections 

2. Ivanhoe 

3. Sketch Book * 



Select two. 
Short 1. Lays of Ancient Rome 

2. Cooper — Novels 

3. Tom Brown's Schooldays 

4. Franklin's Autobiography 

5. Dickens' David Copperneld 

"C" TERM 

Select two. 

1. Bullfinch — Mythology — 1. Making of an American 

Stories of Gods — God- 2. The Virginian 

desses — Heroes of Greece 3. Tenn}^son — Idylls 

2. Odyssey, Selections from 4. Poe — Short Stories 

3. Iliad, Selections from 5. Peabody — Piper 





"D" 


TERM 
Select two. 


1. 


Midsummer Night's Dream 


1. Julius Caesar 


2. 


As You Like It 


2. Lorna Doone 


3. 


Merchant of Venice * 


3. Lamb — Essays — she 

stories only 

4. Silas Marner 

5. House of Seven Gables 



* Third term High School work, but desirable for brightest 
junior high school pupils. 

386 " 



WRITTEN ENGLISH 

Part I. Content. Suggested topics for letters 

"A" TERM 

1. Spirit of Speyer. 

2. Art Excursions. 

3. Speyer Activities. 

4. Looking forward to High School. 

"B" TERM 

1. Science Excursions: 

What we saw that was worth remembering. 

2. Vocational Guidance: 

Telling advantages of certain trades or professions. 
Asking advice as to some trade or profession, 

3. Business Letters: 

Orders, to stores, complaints, recognition of courtesies. 

4. Social Forms: 

Invitations — formal and informal; regrets, etc. 

5. Current Topics. 

"C" TERM 

1. Recommending that a certain book be read. 

2. Literature and History, e.g., Shakespeare's England. 

3. Science Experiments. 

4. Vocational Guidance; " How I Could Earn My Living." 

5. Business Letters; order, complaint, application, etc. 

6. Current Topics. 

7. Civic Responsibility; Letters to City Departments. 

"D" TERM 

1. Business Letters. 5. Literature. 

2. Current News. 6. Stage. 

3. Speyer Happenings. 7. Athletics. 

4. Civic Responsibility. 8. Science, Art, French, etc. 

387 



Part II. Formal Side 

On the formal side of the written English a spiral plan of 
work is being tried out which differs each semester only in 
degree and not in kind. 

For all pupils the following sequence is maintained: 

First Reader's interest to be obtained through 
Month Good Beginning: 

1. Original, attractive, alive, sincere, natural, 

jolly. 

2. Variety of expression: 

(a) Break " and " habit. 

(6) Expand simple sentences. 

Arrangement, heading, envelope. 

Punctuation. 

Period: 

1. No end punctuation in heading. 

2. Used at end of complete thought. 

3. Used in abbreviations. 



Second Reader's Interest to be obtained through 
Month Knowledge: 

1. Exact. 

2. Enough. 

3. Well arranged facts. 

(a) Topic sentence. 
(6) Outline. 

Punctuation. 
Comma. (See footnote for detail.)* 

Third Reader's Interest to. be obtained through 
Month Variety: 

* The four (A, B, C, D) successive steps in difficulty are illus- 
trated, in the case of the comma, on page 389. 

388 



APPENDIX 389 

1. Sentence Structure. 

(a) Simple, compound, complex, inverted, 

balanced, loose, periodic. 

(b) Transition words. 

2. Careful use of period, comma. 
Punctuation: 

Question mark to give variety. 

Capital letters (P. 454, Miller and Palmer). 

Fourth Readers Interest to be obtained through 
Month Expression: 

1. Clear expression. 

2. Choice of words, verb sequence. 

3. Good salesmanship — using devices of best 

type of advertising. 

Punctuation: 
Apostrophe. 
Capital letters (continued). 

COMMA 

"A" Term 
Heading, salutation, closing, envelope. 

1. Direct address. 

2. Before "but". 

3. Words in apposition. 

4. Words in series. 

"B" Term 

1. To set off adverbial clause out of its natural order. 

2. To set off a phrase containing a verbal form used out of its 

natural order. 

3. Phrases or clauses in series. 

"C" Term 

1. Nominative absolute construction. 

2. Parenthetical words, phrases or clauses. 

3. Descriptive clause. 

"D" Term 

1. To set off introductory word or phrase. 

2. To indicate omission of a word. 

3. To separate contrasted or balanced parts of sentence. 

4. To avoid ambiguity. 



FORMAL GRAMMAR PLAN 

"A" TERM 
Sentence 

Subject and predicate 
Compound subject and predicate 

f Simple. 
Forms Complex. 
( Compound. 
Kinds of sentence 

{Declarative. 
Interrogative. Exclamatory. 
Imperative. 
Compound sentences 
Parts of speech recognized 

Classification of nouns < ^ ^ « ,. 

[ Common. Collective 

Inflection of nouns 

"B" TERM 

Pronouns: Adjective and Adverb: 

Classes. Classes. 

Inflections. Inflections. 

p , f Adjective clauses. 
^ \ Adverbial clauses. 
Omit noun clauses until " D " term. 
Conjunctions: coordinate, subordinate. 
Review of previous work. 

"C ,; TERM 
Verbs: 

Regular. Irregular. 

Transitive. Intransitive. Copulative. 

Active and Passive. 

Modes: Indicative, Imperative, Subjunctive. 

Tenses (6). 

Corrections of errors, agreement of verbs and subjects. 

Review of previous work. 

390 



APPENDIX 391 

"D" TERM 

Verbals. 

Infinitives and participles. 

Noun clauses. 

Expanding simple sentences to complex; phrases to clauses; 

and combining detached statements into simple compound 

and complex sentences. 
Same word used as different parts of speech. 
Analyses and syntheses. 

PUPIL'S GUIDE FOR CORRECTION OF ERRORS 
OF FORM IN HIS LETTERS 

1. Margin. 

1. Left hand 1 J— 2 inch. 

2. Right hand 1-2 inch. 

2. Heading. 

1. Open. 

2. Box. 

3. Three fines. 

4. No abbreviations except state. 

3. Salutation. 

1. Touching margin line. 

2. Capitalize first word and all names. 

3. Comma. 

4. Closing. 

1. Capitalize first word. 

2. Follow first line by comma. 

3. Period after name. 

5. Paragraphing. 

1. Topic sentence. 

2. Indentation. 

3. Unity. 

4. Coherence. 

(a) Transitional words. 

(b) Repetition. 



392 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 



6. Sentences. 


1. 


Variety in: 




(a) Kind. 
(6) Length, 
(c) Order. 


2. 


Structurally correct. 




(a) Avoid " and " habit, 

(b) Unified. 

(c) Clear. 

(d) Connectives. 

(e) Modifying elements. 


7. Spell 


ling. 


1. 
2. 
3. 


The apostrophe. 

Capitalization. 

Contractions. 


4. 


Abbreviations. 


8. Punctuation. 


1. 
2. 


Full stop at the end of se 
Comma. 



(a) Direct address. 

(6) Series words, phrases, and clauses. 

(c) Before " but." 

(d) To separate phrases and clauses which begin 

sentences. 

9. Penmanship. 

1. Legible. 

2. Uniform. 

3. Neat. 

4. Large. 

10. Grammar. 

1. Subject and predicate. 

2. Agreement between subject and predicate. 

3. Tenses. 

4. Verb forms (irregular). 



APPENDIX 393 



5. Pronoun and its antecedents. 

6. Pronoun and its cases. 

7. Comparison of adjectives and adverbs. 

8. Correct use of: 



(a) 


get — 


be. 


(b) 


shall - 


-will. 


(c) 


learn - 


— teach. 


(d) 


would 


— will. 


(e) 


could - 


— can. 



(/) should — shall. 



FRENCH 

"A" TERM 

Most of the time in French for the " A " term is devoted to 
an expansion of the topics under Social Studies "A" term, 
but which are not reprinted here. See Social Studies. 

Vocabulary. Conversation based on: 

La Classe Les Nombres 

Le Corps L'heure 

Les Vetements 

Songs and Games *: 

Frere Jacques Au clair de la lune 

Est-ce Sur le pont d' Avignon 

II etait une bergere 

Phonetics: 

All vowel sounds. 

Nasals. 

Grammar: 

Definite and indefinite article. 

Gender of nouns. 

Agreement of adjectives. 

Present tense of avoir and etre. 

Present tense of verbs of the first conjugation. 

Use of interrogative pronouns. 

"B" TERM 

Having awakened a keen desire for the study of French 
through the " Introductory Course " in the A term, the B 
term takes up the work in a more intensive manner. 

Although part of the daily instruction is to be devoted to 

* Reading: Meras, Le Premier Livre, Lessons 1, 2, 3, 4. 

394 



APPENDIX 395 

phonetic drills and conversational exercises, a systematic study 
of the elements of grammar and simple syntax is begun. 

Reading: 

Twenty-five to thirty pages from a graded reader (Le Premier 
Livre, Meras). 

Memory: 

Le Petit Pierre (Poetry). 
La Marseillaise (Song). First stanza. 
Remi (Prose). Twenty lines. 
Proverbs (12). 

Grammar: 

Adjectives: agreement, position, formation of feminine and 
plural of regular adjectives. Irregular adjectives: bon, 
blanc, heureux, beau, long, cher. 

Nouns: Gender, formation of regular plural. 

Pronouns: Subject 

Interrogative qui and que. 
Verbs: 

Present indicative of avoir and etre, all forms. 

Present indicative, past, past indefinite, future, and im- 
perative of regular verbs of 1st, 2nd and 3rd conjugations. 

Present indicative, past indefinite, and imperative of the 
following irregular verbs: prendre, comprendre, dire, lire, 
ecrire, alter, mettre. 

Adverbs: Comment, combien, ne-pas. 
Miscellaneous: 

Cardinal numbers to 100. 
Ordinal numbers to 50. 
Days of week, months. 

Idioms: 

Void, voila; il y a. 
Comment allez-vous? 
Comment vous appelez-vous? 
Etc., etc. 



396 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

"C" TERM 

Idioms: 
Salutations, age, weather, avoir faim, peur, etc. 

Poetry: 

La Marseillaise, En passant par la Lorraine. 
Reading: 

Le Premier Livre, Meras, about 50 pages, or Conversational 
French Reader, Bierman & Frank, 20 selections. 

Miscellaneous: 

Numbers to 1000; proverbs; il y a, voila; quel, gu'esi-ce qui; 
ne-jamais, etc., en and present participle, apres followed by 
infinitive, partitive noun preceded by adjective, two ways 
of forming question, months, seasons. 

Article: Definite, singular and plural, combined with prepo- 
sitions de, a; partitive. Indefinite, singular and plural. 

Adjectives: 

Agreement, position, rule of adjectives of color, nationality, 
comparison, regular and irregular, irregular feminine and 
plural. 
Demonstratives. 
Possessives. 

Pronouns: 
Direct and indirect object. 
Demonstrative. 
Disjunctive. 
Relative, qui, que. 
Partitive en. 

Verbs: 
Present indicative, imperfect, past indefinite, future, principal 

parts. 
Imperative of regular verbs in er, re, ir and of some more 

common irregular verbs like prendre, mettre, ouvrir, ecrire, 

faire, comprendre, dire, lire, repondre, aller, avoir, etre. 
Agreement of past participle when combined with itre, with 

avoir. 
Reflexive and reciprocal verbs. 



APPENDIX 397 

Adverbs: 
Formation, position with past participle, plus, moins, y, 
plusieurs. 

"D" TERM 

Idioms (continued). 
Poetry: 

La Cigale et la Fourmi. 

Le Renard et le Corbeau. 

La Grenouille et le Boeuf. 

Reading: 

Le Premier Livre, Meras; about 50 pages. 

Petit s Contes de France, Meras and Roth, about 50 pages. 

Scenes of Familiar Life, Frazer, 7 to 10 selections. 

Article: 
Indefinite. (Omitted with words indicating profession or 
nationality.) 

Definite : 
Used in a general sense. 
Used instead of a possessive. 

Partitive: 
Before an adjective. 
After a negative. 
After nouns and adverbs of quantity and measure. 

Adjectives: 
Plural of irregular adjectives. 
Superlative degree. 
Rules for position and agreement (continued). 

Pronouns: 
Possessives (continued). 
Demonstratives (continued). 
Relatives (continued). 
Disjunctives as objects of a preposition. 
Use of two objects (continued). 
En, on. 



398 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

Verbs: 

Complete all tenses except subjunctive of verbs previously 
studied, regular and irregular. Add verbs like alter, venir, 
pouvoir, vouloir. 

Formation of tenses. 

Synopsis. 



GENERAL INTRODUCTORY SCIENCE 



A" TERM 



First A. How high have men gone in balloons or airplanes? 
Month How did they know how high they had gone? 

1. How do yon make a mercury barometer? 

Experiments to prove the principles in- 
volved. 

Air exerts pressure, has weight, occupies 
space and is a real substance. 

2. Why is the aneroid barometer in more 

common use than the mercury ba- 
rometer? 

3. How do the officials at an aero meet know 

the altitudes attained by the various 
contestants? 

4. Barograph. 

How could you use a barometer to help 
predict the weather? 
Second B. 1. How could you empty a flooded cellar? 
Month (sewer or excavation) 

Lift pump. 

2. How would you get water into a tank on 

the top of a high building? 
Force pump. 

3. How would you empty an excavation filled 

with soft mud, or water containing 

sand and small stones? 
Centrifugal pump. 
Third C. 1. How is a vacuum bottle made? 
Month Exhausting air pump. Commercial uses 

of a vacuum. 

2. How is a bicycle tire inflated? 

Bicycle pump. 

3. How is a building cleaned by sand blasting? 

Air compressor. Commercial uses of 
compressed air. 
399 



400 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 



D. How would you empty an aquarium? 
Siphon. Commercial siphons. 
Fourth E. Why do aviators bleed at high altitudes? 
Month Air pressure and the human body. The 

" bends." 
1. What causes " ringing " in the ears? 

Structure of the ear. Sound. Eustachian 
tube. 
F. How does a Boy Scout build a fire? 

Composition of the air. Properties of 
oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and 
carbon dioxide. Products of burning. 

1. How does a match burn? 

Kindling point. Oxidation. 

2. How would you put out a fire? 

Fire extinguishers. 
Fifth G. How does New York City get its water supply? 
Month Sources. Purification. Pressure. 

1. Do all cities get their water from mountains? 

Water supply systems. 

2. How do we get the water into the house? 

House piping. Hot and cold water supply. 
Faucets. 

3. How is waste matter carried away? 

Sewerage systems. Septic tanks. 
H. Could you tell when a storm is coming? 

Weather Bureau. Weather map. Winds. 
1. What causes rain? 

Evaporation and condensation. 



"B" TERM 

(SPRING TERM BIOLOGY) 

First Museum of Natural History: Prehistoric animals. 
Month Proj. Were there any animals on earth before man? 
Museum of Natural History: Struggle for existence. 
Proj. How do animals benefit man by fighting for 
him? 
Museum of Natural History: Habitat Bird Group. 
Proj. Group these birds on adaptation to environ- 
ment. 



APPENDIX 401 

Museum of Natural History: Birds of the world. 
Proj . How do birds help conserve natural resources? 
Proj. What adaptation have birds for (a) pro- 
tection? (6) food getting? (c) life in air? 
Second Museum of Natural History: Commercial Animal 
Month Products. 

Proj. How are water mammals valuable to man? 
Aquarium: Fish (adaptations, protective coloration). 
Proj. What adaptations has a fish for life in water? 
Botanical Gardens, Bronx Park Tropical Plants. 

Proj. How do plants of tropics differ from ours? 
Museum of Systematic Botany: Commercial Plant 
Products. 
Proj. What valuable commercial products do we 
obtain from plants? 
Third Museum of Natural History: Useful insects. 
Month Proj. How are insects beneficial (a) to plants, 
(6) to man? 
Museum of Natural History: Harmful insects. 

Proj. How are plants injured by insects? 
Museum of Natural History: Flies and mosquitoes. 

Proj . How are insects harmful as carriers of disease? 
Museum of Natural History: Food values. 

Proj. What foods should you eat and how much? 
Make a menu for (a) breakfast, (b) dinner, 

(c) supper. 
Make a menu for a school luncheon. 
Fourth Museum of Natural History: Woods and Forestry. 
Month Proj. How is wood made? 
Palisades: Soil and Rocks. 

Proj. What does soil in woods contain? 
Palisades: Trees in relation to environment. 

Proj. What evidence of a struggle for existence do 
you observe among the trees in the woods? 
Palisades: Flowers. 

Proj. How are flowers benefited by insects? 
How do flowers produce seeds? 
How do fruits and seeds secure dispersal? 
Fifth Palisades: Amphibia and reptiles. 
Month Proj. What animals can you find in swamps and 
ponds? 



402 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

How are they adapted for protection? 
How are they useful to man? 
Zoological Gardens, Bronx: Recognition Test. 

Proj. How many birds which you studied at the 
Museum early this term can you identify? 
How can we justify the spending of city 
money to care for all these animals? 
Aquarium: Fish Conservation. 

Proj. How are fish artificially propagated? 
How is this work valuable? 



"C" TERM 

First A. Why did the U. S. government build the dam at 
Month Keokuk? 

Conservation of energy. Sources of energy. 
Kinds of energy. Transformation of 
energy. Forms of energy. 
What would happen to the ea^th if the sun 
were to stop giving light and heat? 
B. How would you find your direction at night? 

North star. Constellations. Sun and stars. 
Nebulae. Solar system. 

1. What causes the phases of the moon? 

2. What causes the change of seasons? 

3. Why did we have to change our clocks Sep- 

tember 20th? 
Time. Standard and solar time. Inter- 
national date fine. 

4. If you were transported to the moon, how 

high could you jump? 
Second C. How are our houses lighted? 
Month 1. Why have our houses windows? 

Sun as source of earth's light. Reflection 

and diffusion of fight. 

2. How does a prism form the " rainbow "? 

Refraction. Color in sunlight. Color of 
bodies. 

3. How do we take pictures? 

Lenses. Camera. Human eye. Intensity 
of light. 



APPENDIX 



403 



4. How are our houses lighted when the sun is 
not shining? 
Candles. Kerosene. Gas. Electric light. 
Direct and indirect lighting. 
D. How is your home heated? 

Heating Systems: steam, hot water, hot air, 
stoves, gas heater. Distribution of heat. 
Coal and wood as fuel. 
Third E. Why does a car, rolling along the tracks, come to 
Month rest? 

Inertia. Friction. Weight. Work. Horse- 
power. 

F. How can man, weak as he is, move weights greater 

than can be moved by other stronger 
animals? 
What machines are used in your home? 

Lever. Wheel and axle. Pulley. Inclined 
plane. Wedge. Screw. Pendulum. Com- 
plex machines. 

G. Why do mariners need the compass? 

Magnets and lines of force. Laws of magnetism. 
Fourth H. What makes an electric bell ring? 
Month Electric magnets. Permanent and temporary 

magnets. Telephone and telegraph. Wire- 
less telephone and telegraph. Electricity 
and modern means of communication. 
Organs of speech. 
I. Why does a ship made of iron float, while a piece 
of iron sinks in water? 
Flotation. Specific gravity. Submarines. 
Fifth J. How is a locomotive able to pull a long train? 
Month Steam engine. Steam ship. Great land and 

water routes. 
K. How does an automobile move by itself? 

Gas engines. Automobiles. 
L. How do subway trains move? 

Electric motor. Dynamo. Power stations. 
M. How may electricity be made commercially, with- 
out the use of steam? 
Water power. Water wheels. Conservation of 
the forests. 



404 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 



"D" TERM 

(FALL TERM BIOLOGY) 

First 1. How does a flower produce a seed? 

Month Essential organs, pollination. 

2. What does the pollen grain do after it reaches the 

stigma? 
Microscopic study of pollen grains grown in 

sugar solution. 
Fertilization. 

3. How does a seed produce a new plant? 

Purpose of seed in plant's life. 
Seed dispersal, especially weed seeds. 
Economic value of seeds. 
How man secures better plants. 
Second 4. How is the embryo nourished until able to support 
Month itself? 

Show how growth is affected hj air, water, 
temperature. 
5. ' What food substances are found in seeds — bean, 
corn. 
Tests for nutrients — starch, sugar, protein, 
fats, minerals, water. 

6. How is stored food made ready for use in a seedling? 

How seeds digest starch. 

7. How is food used by animals? 

Show digestion of starch, protein. 
Digestive system: organs, functions, secretions, 
enzymes. 

8. How do foods get into the blood? 

Osmosis. 

Circulatory system: study of blood, source of 
plasma, function of corpuscles. 

9. What effect has exercise on rate of heart beat? 

Taking one's pulse. 
Heart: location, size, shape. 
Function of valves — arteries, veins and capil- 
laries. 
Third 10. What changes take place in blood as it passes 
Month through walls of alimentary canal, muscles, 

lungs and kidneys? 



APPENDIX 405 

11. How is heat value of foods measured? 

How much food should you eat and of what 

kinds? 
Make a menu suitable for a boy's school lunch. 
Make a science poster for a school campaign to 

secure better lunches for boys at Speyer 

School. 

12. What is value of good drinking water in our daily 

diet? 
How has New York City secured a good water 

supply? 
How do trees affect moisture in soil? 
How do root hairs absorb soil water? 
Microscopic study of root hairs. Osmosis. 
What else besides water do roots take from soil? 
How does water pass up through stems? 
Fourth 13. How is food manufactured in green leaves? 
Month Show that (a) green leaves contain starch, 

(6) starch is made in the green leaf, (c) air, 

light, water and chlorophyll are necessary for 

starch making. 

14. Experiments to show that green leaves give off 

O and H2O when manufacturing starch. 
Microscopic study of green leaf, guard cells, 
stomata. 

15. How do non-green plants secure food? 

Saprophytes useful to man — yeast. 
Parasites harmful to man. 

16. Why do foods spoil? 

Bacteria: useful and harmful. 

How are plants and animals mutually helpful? 

Protozoa: harmful and useful. 



SOCIAL SCIENCE 

"A" TERM 
(History, Geography*, Civics) 

The history in the A Grade starts with the recent war and 
carries the pupils back to the early history of Europe. Special 
emphasis is placed on the part France has played in history. 

This work is planned to serve in part as an introduction to 
a study of the French language. 

1. France — our ally in the World War. 

Joffre, Foch, Petain, Pershing, Wilson, Lloyd George, 
Clemenceau, Orlando. 

2. Ancient friendship of France for the United States. 

Lafayette, Franklin, De Grasse, Rochambeau. 

3. Conditions leading up to the French Revolution. 

Louis XIV, Louis XV. 

4. Government in France during our Revolution. 

Louis XVI. 

5. The French Revolution. 

Robespierre, Danton, Marat. 

6. Napoleon. 

7. Why was there no revolution in England? 

Magna Charta, Petition of Rights, Bill of Rights. 

8. Development of Parliamentary system of government. 

Great Council, Simon de Montfort's Parliament, Model 
Parliament, Long Parliament. 

9. Earlier forms of government. 

Feudalism. 

10. France in the Middle Ages. The days of chivalry. 

11. The Hundred Years' War. 

Joan of Arc. 

12. The Crusades. 

Godfrey de Bouillon, Barbarossa, Richard Coeur de Lion. 

* The geography taken up in this course consists of a study of 
the territories covered in the historicals urvey previously outlined, 
together with a study of the colonial possessions of the great 
European powers. 

406 



APPENDIX 407 

13. Charlemagne. Rise of the Holy Roman Empire. 

14. The people of France. 

Origin, development, customs, ideals. 

"B" TERM 

The B Grade takes up ancient history in order better to 
understand the present. Some of the contributions of Rome, 
Greece, Babylonia and Egypt to present day civilization are 
touched upon in a study of the development of civilization in 
these countries. 

1. Evidence today that there was a great period before the 

time of Charlemagne : (a) Art, (b) Literature — Iliad, 
Odyssey, (c) Roman Law Books. 

2. Rome: advantages of her geographical position that aided 

her in becoming center of a great empire. 

3. Rome: Early Roman society; the Roman family, religion, 

government. Social classes in early republic — patricians, 
plebeians. The twelve tables. 

4. Rome: Expansion of Rome; Carthage versus Rome; 

Punic Wars; military genius of Rome. 

5. Rome: great personalities of Rome in the period preceding 

the Empire period; (a) Gracchi, (b) Marius, (c) Sulla, 
(d) Pompey, (e) Crassus, (/) Caesar, (g) Antony, Oc- 
t avian. 

6. Empire period: (a) Augustus, (b) Nero, 64 a.d., (c) Titus, 

79 a.d. Excavations at Pompeii, (d) Hadrian, famous 
Pantheon, walls, baths, aqueducts, theatres and temples. 
Literature of this period — Aeneid, Horace, Vergil, Livy. 

7. Survivals of Roman period: (a) Language — Romance 

languages, (6) Roman law, (c) Roman idea of free self- 
governing city never died out of Europe. 

8. Greece: the country from which Rome borrowed a large 

part of her culture. How the mountains of Greece 
divided it so that city states developed. 

9. Greece: myths found in Homer and Hesiod founded on 

historic facts; excavations at Troy and Mycenae; re- 
ligion, gods and goddesses. 

10. Greece: Sparta and Athens as types of city states; as- 

sembly of freemen; training of Spartan boy. 

11. Greece: attacks by other nations. Supremacy of Athens. 



408 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

Age of Pericles. Literary development. Herodotus. 
Progress in philosophy — Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. 

12. Greece under Philip and Alexander the Great. Contri- 

butions of Greece: (a) Art, (6) Science, (c) Literature, 
(d) Philosophy. 

13. Phoenicia: carrier of knowledge in ancient times; contri- 

butions: alphabet and colonies established. 

14. Babylonia: geographical conditions that led to the de- 

velopment of an early civilization. Brief history. Con- 
tributions: (a) sundial, (b) water clock, (c) face of the 
clock. 

15. Egypt: how the geography of Egypt has affected its history. 

Important periods in Egyptian history, (a) pyramid 
builders, (6) temple period. Contribution: rudimentary 
calendar. 

16. Contributions made to civilization by India and China. 

Causes for lack of progress. 



"C" TERM 

Aims: " Knowledge interpreting " rather than " knowledge 
getting." A study of the relations of cause and effect. Im- 
portant influences at work in our history. 

The pupil trained to use his knowledge to interpret present 
day conditions. 

The pupil better prepared (1) to obtain authentic informa- 
tion upon public questions; (2) to develop an interest in the 
social problems of the day; (3) to maintain an open-minded at- 
titude toward controversial subjects; (4) to gain an increasing 
ability to evaluate correctly qualities of leadership in public 
servants; (5) to recognize and appreciate his great civic 
inheritance. 

I. Civilization carried to a New Continent; American be- 
ginnings in Europe. Economic conditions leading up to the 
discovery of America. American discoveries and explorations. 
Colonization of America and colonial life. Growth of the 
spirit of democracy. The American Revolution. Welding' the 
states into a nation. 

II. The growth of our nation, with special emphasis upon: 
amendments to the Constitution; new political parties; in- 



APPENDIX 409 

ventions and discoveries as affecting industry and commerce; 
the tariff as affecting industry. 

III. Transportation and travel. Increase of population by 
immigration; the growth of cities; unification of the North 
and the South; labor unions; conservation; civil service re- 
form; public health; public education; equal suffrage. 

IV. The Spanish American war as a phase of expansion. 
Foreign relations; the Monroe Doctrine applied; island pos- 
sessions; Hague tribunal; Panama Canal. 

Some causes and some effects of the World War. 

"D" TERM 
(COMMUNITY CIVICS) 

Topic: The course in Community Civics is given in the hope 
of making better citizens of our pupils by arousing in them an 
interest in civic matters through a knowledge of what the 
government does for them, and, of what their duties as individuals 
are. 

In order to correlate the class work with actual conditions 
we think it well to begin the fall term with a study of the elective 
offices of our city government to correspond to the primaries, 
registration and election during the months of September, 
October and November. 

1. Introduction: Training the voter of tomorrow. A survey 

of what the government does for its citizens and of the 
duties of the citizen to the community. 

2. The part of the citizen in government: Why active citizen- 

ship is necessary. How a person becomes a citizen. 
> How a citizen takes part in the government. 

3. How the laws are carried out: The mayor; duties and 

power; great responsibility of position. Responsibility 
of voter. Our city government as compared with the 
commission plan. 

4. Paying the city's bills: The Board of Estimate and Ap- 

portionment. The budget. Means of obtaining money, 
etc. 

5. Making the laws: City, State and National legislation affect- 

ing the citizen. 

6. Judicial action: Need of courts — classes of courts — 

procedure. 



410 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 

7. Public education: Why and how the public manages schools. 

8. The city's water supply: Sources, protection and adminis- 

tration of New York City's water supply. 

9. Protecting the Food of the City: Dangers to which city 

dwellers are exposed. Work of City, State and National 
government. 

10. Guarding the health of the people: Methods and agencies of 

health promotion. Work of Health Department. Re- 
lation of industry to health. 

11. Disposal of city wastes: Need of community action; work 

of city departments. Individual responsibility and 
cooperation. 

12. Protection of life and property: Need of community action. 

Police and Fire Departments. 

13. Regulation of buildings: The problem of housing. Work of 

City and State government. 

14. Communication and transportation: Dependence of civilized 

life upon communication and transportation. Means. 
Government control. 

15. Lighting and heating- as public utilities: Need of public 

action and government regulation. 

16. City planning: Need of a city plan. Our sj^stem. Govern- 

ment agencies concerned. 

17. Civic beauty: Value of beauty. City and state agencies. 

Individual responsibility and cooperation. 

18. Care of the City's wards: Classes of unfortunates. Why a 

matter of public concern. Government and private 
agencies. 

19. Public regulation of work: Why community action necessary. 

Government regulations. Individual responsibility. 

20. Public provision for recreation: Importance of play space to 

the community. 



APPENDIX 



411 



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412 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 



NEW YORK CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS 



GUIDE FOR DETERMINING SUMMARIZED RATING 

AND FOR RECORDING EXCEPTIONAL OR 

UNSATISFACTORY SERVICE 



I. 


Professional Attitude 


Individual 




A. Regularity of attendance and punc- 

tuality 

B. Cooperation 

C. Social service 

D. Volunteer activities 

E. Care of physical welfare of child 

F. Loyalty 

G. Serf-improvement 


Comment ' 






II. 


Instruction 

A. Use of English 

B. Knowledge of subject matter 

C. Skill in teaching 

1. Preparation 

2. Definiteness of aim 

3. Appropriateness of method 

4. Good questioning 

5. Thoroughness of drill 

6. Participation and interest of class 

D. Results obtained 




III. 


Discipline 

A. Control of class 

B. Training pupils in self-control 

C. Effect on attendance and truancy 

D. Character building 




IV. 


Personal Attributes 

A. Personal appearance 

B. Use of voice 

C. Cheerfulness 

D. Courtesy 

E. Self-control 

F. Initiative and demonstrated leadership 

G. Tact 

H. Sympathy 




V. 


Routine 

A. Accuracy and promptness^ in prepar- 

ing reports and in keeping records 

B. Classroom administration 





BIBLIOGRAPHY 

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS' PROFESSIONAL 
LIBRARY 



GENEEAL REFEEENCE 

1. Bonser. Elementary School 
. Curriculum 

2. Freeland. Modern Ele- 
mentary School Practice 

3. Parker. General Methods 
of Teaching in Elementary 
Schools 

4. Rapeer. Teaching Ele- 
mentary School Subjects 

5. Stray er. Brief Course in 
Teaching Process 

6. Strayer-Engelhardt. The 
Classroom Teacher 

7. Davis. Work of the 
Teacher 

8. Norsworthy and Whitley. 
Psychology of Childhood 

9. Thorndike. Principles of 
Teaching 

10. Scott. Social Education 

REMAEKS 



SPECIAL METHODS 

11. Arithmetic 

Klapper. Teaching of Arith- 
metic 

Thorndike. Methods of 
Teaching Arithmetic 

Thorndike. Psychology of 
Arithmetic 

12. Composition 

Leonard. English Composi- 
tion as a Social Problem 
Klapper. Teaching of English 

13. Geography 

Dodge and Kirchwey. Teach- 
ing of Geography 
McMurry. Special Methods 
in Geography 

14. History 

Johnson. Teaching of History 

Kendall and Stryker. History 

in the Elementary School 

15. Manual Arts 
Bonser. Industrial Arts 
Winslow and Gompf. Indus- 
trial Arts in Elementary 
Education 

16. Physical Training 
Bowen. Teaching of Elemen- 
tary School Gymnastics 

Hoag and Terman. Health 
Work in the Schools 



413 



414 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 



remarks (continued) 



special methods (continued) 

17. Reading 

Klapper. Teaching Children 

to Read 
Jenkins. Reading in Primary 

Grades 

18. Spelling 

Suzzallo. Teaching of Spell- 
ing 

Cook and O'Shea. Child and 
His Spelling 

19. Ethics 

Moral Training in Public 
Schools. California prize 
essays 

20. Science 

Trafton. Teaching of Science 
in Elementary School 

Hodge. Nature Study and 
Life 



JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEMS 

Briggs. The Junior High School 
Koos. The Junior High School 



For other Junior High School subjects, see High School list. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



415 



HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS' PROFESSIONAL LIBRARY 



GENERAL REFERENCE 

21. Colvin. Introduction to 
High School Teaching 

22. Judd. Psychology of High 
School Subjects 

23. Inglis. Principles of Sec- 
ondary Education 

24. Foster. Principles of 
Teaching in Secondary Schools 

25. Johnston. Modern High 
School 

26. Monroe. Principles of Sec- 
ondary Education 

27. Parker. Methods of Teach- 
ing in High Schools 

28. Hall. Youth 

29. Bobbitt. Curriculum 

30. Dewey. Democracy and 
Education 

Strayer and Norsworthy. 
How to Teach 

REMARKS 



SPECIAL METHODS 

31. Art (Drawing) 

Dow. Theory and Practice 

of Teaching Art 
Dow. Art Composition 

32. Biology 

Lloyd and Bigelow. Teach- 
ing of Biology 

33. Chemistry 
Smith-Hall. Teaching of 

Chemistry 

34. Civics 

American Political Science 
Association. Teaching of 
Government and Civics 

35. Economics 

Haynes. Economics in Sec- 
ondary Schools 

36. English Composition 
Thomas. Teaching of English 

in High Schools 
Leonard. English Composi- 
tion 

37. English Grammar 
Barbour. Teaching of En- 
glish Grammar 

Carpenter, Baker and Scott. 
Teaching of English 

38. English Literature 
Carpenter, Baker and Scott. 

Teaching of English 
Chubb. Teaching of English 

39. French 

Palmer. Scientific Study and 
Teaching of Languages 

40. General Science 

Twiss. Text book in princi- 
ples of science teaching 



416 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 



remarks (continued) 



special methods (continued) 
Van Buskirk and Smith. 
Science of Everyday Life 

41. German 
Bagster-Collins. German in 

Secondary Schools 

42. History 

Johnson. Teaching of History 
Try on. Teaching of History 
in High Schools 

43. Latin 

Bennett and Bristol. Teach- 
ing of Latin and Greek 

Game. Teaching High School 
Latin 

44. Manual Training 
Griffith. Teaching Manual 

and Industrial Arts 

45. Mathematics 

Schultze. Teaching of Math- 
ematics in Secondary 
Schools 

Young. Teaching of Math- 
ematics 

46. Physical Training 
Skarstrom. Gymnastic 

Teaching 
Rapeer. Educational Hygiene 

47. Physical Geography 
Holtz. Principles and Meth- 
ods of Teaching Geography 

48. Physics 

Smith and Hall. Teaching of 

Chemistry-Physics 
Mann. Teaching of Physics 

49. Spanish 

Wilkins. Spanish in the High 
School 

50. Psychology 
Woodworth. Psychology 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



417 



SUPERVISORS' PROFESSIONAL LIBRARY 



GENEEAL EEFEEENCE 



EEMAEKS 



SPECIAL METHODS 

51. Adolescence 

G. Stanley Hall. Adolescence 

52. Administration 
Cubberley. Public School 

Administration 
Strayer-Thorndike. Educa- 
tional Administration 

53. Assemblies 

New York City Board of 
Education. Pamphlet on 
"Assemblies" 

54. Citizenship 

Dewey. School and Society 
Dean. Our Schools in War 
Time and After 

55. Compulsory Education 

56. Delinquents 

57. Examinations. (Promotion) 
Kelly. Teachers' Marks 

58. General Intelligence Tests 
Terman. Measurement of 

Intelligence 

59. Grading of School Children 

60. Hygiene of School. Children 
Hoag and Terman. Health 

Work in Schools 
Cornell. Health and Medi- 
cal Inspection of School 
Children 

61. Improving Instruction 
Strayer. A Brief Course in 

Teaching Process 

62. Management 
Strayer-Engelhardt. The 

Classroom Teacher 
Bagley. Classroom Manage- 
ment 



418 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 



remarks (continued) 



special methods (continued) 

63. Mental Defectives 
Norsworthy. Psychology of 

Mentally Deficient Children 

64. Moral Training 

Dewey. Moral Principles of 
Education 

65. Physical Defectives 
Terman. Hygiene of the 

School Child 

66. Play. Athletics 
Curtis. Play 

67. Psychology of Childhood 
Norsworthy-Whitley. Psy- 
chology of Childhood 

68. Rating of Teachers 

The Fourteenth Yearbook. 
National Society for the 
Study of Education 

69. Social Education 
Scott. Social Education 

70. Standardized (subject) tests 
Monroe, Devoss and Kelley. 

Educational Tests and 
Measurements 
Wilson and Hoke. How to 
Measure Education 

71. Supervision of Instruction 
Nutt. Supervision of In- 
struction 

72. Training of Teachers 

73. Truancy 

74. Vocational Training 
Snedden. Vocational 

Education 

75. Welfare Work 

Jackson. Community Center 
Carney. Country Life and 

Country Schools 
Curtis. Recreation Through 

Play 



INDEX 



Ability, native or general, 24; 
sequence in, 36 

Accounting, 127, 132 

Advisory, committee of teachers, 
369 

Agassiz, 265 

Ailanthus tree, 266 

Aims, establishing in Junior 
High School, subjects, 82; in 
special subjects, see each sep- 
arately; of Speyer School, 4 

Algebra, 127, 132 

American history, 174. See also 
History 

Annapolis, methods at, 91 

Army tests, 22, 289 

Art, in Junior High School, 187; 
Teaching Appreciation of, 
Chap. XI, 187; field work in, 
273; pictorial, 190; teachers, 
artist, 193 

Articulation of Junior and 
Senior High schools, 85 

Artists and our course of study, 
187 

Athletics, 213 

Average pupil, 27, 36, 44, 78 

Battery tests, 23 
Binet-Simon tests, 22 
Bodily Health, Chap. XII, 199 
Briggs, Prof. Thomas H., 3, 82 
Bright pupils, 33, 37-40, 78 
Business letters, 116 

Character Building, Chap. XII, 
199, 214 



Children's letters, 107 
Chinese examinations, 284, 302 
Choice of high school course, 14 
Choosing the Course of Study, 

Chap. IV, 58 
Citizenship, practice in, 123, 327. 

See also Self-government 
Civics, community, 180. See 

also Social Science 
Class leaders, duties of, 336 
Class meetings, 120. See also 

Self-government 
College entrance requirements, 

63; in physical training, 200; 

Columbia University, 303 
Completion tests, 297 
Compulsory education, 233 
Congestion in schools, 259 
Contemporary civilization ex- 
amination, 303 
Contrast between Senior and 

Junior High schools, 11 
Correction of pupils' letters, 117 
Courses of Study, Choosing the, 

Chap. IV, 58; tabulation of, 

68 

Dates for uniform tests, 49 
Discipline, 50 
Drawing. See Art 
Duty, pupils working from sense 
of, 84 

Effort vs. interest, 81 
Elementary school, emphasis, 

18; graduation from, 12; 

ideas, 12 



419 



420 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 



Elimination from high school, 15 

English in the Junior High 

School, Chap. VI, 96; field 

work, 269; grammar, 113; 

literature, 96, 98, 99; oral, 97, 

119; written, 97, 117 

Enrollment by grades, 45 

Ettinger, Dr. William L., 

quoted, 373 
Examinations at entrance to 
Senior High School, 88; for 
promotion, 288; teachers' work 
in, 298; Written, Chap. XVII, 
284; also see Written Exami- 
nations 

Fear as a deterrent, 328 

Field trips, difficulties of, 274; 
preparation for, 280 

Field Work, in all Subjects, 
Chap. XVI, 259; in English, 
269; manual art, 273; math- 
ematics, 268; music, 274; 
natural science, 267; practi- 
cal details of, 274; social 
studies, 271 

Foreign language, 74; introduc- 
tion to, 150, 151; introduc- 
tory, Chap. VIII, 139; new 
requirements of teachers, 153; 
practice in, 154; one language 
for a school, 149; teacher of, 
264; unavoidable, 143, 148; 
use of, 144, 154 

French. See Foreign Language 

Gary school plan, 263 

General Introductory Science, 
Chap. IX, 158; aims in, 165; 
boys' ambitions in, 170; not 
to make scientists, 164; proj- 
ects in, 167; reasons for 



studying, 161; specialization 

of artisans, 162; teachers of, 

169; text books in, 168 
General Method in Junior High 

School, Chap. V, 77 
Geography, growth of, 178. See 

also Social Science 
Geometry, study of, 130, 133 
German. See Foreign Language 
Gosling, Supt. Thomas W., 6, 10 
Grades, size of, 54 
Graduation, elementary school, 

12 
Grammar, English, 107, 113 
Group tests, interpretation of, 

25 

"Hamlet," an illustration from 
the play, 101 

Health, day, 208; of children, 
200, 207; nutrition grades, 
201; record, 209. See also 
Physical Training 

Height of boys and girls, 205 

High school aims, 17; attitude, 
79, 91; election, 14; emphasis, 
18; joint committee, 93; 
methods, 16 

History, American, 174; aims in, 
176 

Hold-overs, 46 

Homer's "Odyssey," pupils' re- 
action, 102 

Home study, 71, 221; experi- 
ments in, 223 

Homogeneous grouping, 26, 44 

Immediate appeal vital to 

project, 234 
Immediate values essential, 63 
Instruction, Project Method of, 

Chap. XIV, 233 



INDEX 



421 



Interest, improperly secured, 80 
Intelligence, tests, 21; at Speyer 
School, 29; combinations of, 
32. See also Written Exami- 
nations 
Introduction, Chap. A, 3 
Italian. See Foreign Language 

Junior College, 94 

Junior and Senior High School 

work blended, 65 
Junior High School, a finding 

and sorting school, 16, 86; 

aims stated, 4, 19; Idea, Chap. 

1,8 

King, Leo H., tests given by, 31 

Latin in Junior High School, 
140, 145, 147; direct method, 
145 ; incentives an illustration, 
77 

Leaders Club of Speyer School, 
335; constitution, 347 

Leaders in classes, Speyer 
School, 336 

Leadership, training for, old 
style, 17, 142; in self-govern- 
ment, 330; in Speyer School, 
335 

Lecture method, 245 

Letters, audience essential, 109; 
business, 116; correction, 117; 
of children, 107; subjects for, 
110 

Manual, art, field work in, 273; 
training, why not discussed, 5 

Marks, working for, 321 

Mathematics, 66, 72, 127, 130; 
accounting, 127; algebra, 127, 
132; field work, 268; General 



Introductory, Chap. VII, 125; 
geometry, 130, 133; trigo- 
nometry, 131; unit course, 
132; at Speyer School, 135 

McMurry, Prof. Frank, quoted, 
238 

Memoirs, National Academy, 
309 

Method of salesmanship, 95 

Military availability, 23 

Modern language, forecast of 
success in, 155 

Motion pictures in English lit- 
erature, 270 

Museum of Art, 191; of Natural 
History, 265, 279 

Music, appreciation in, 190, 194; 
field work, 274; memory list, 
N. Y. C, 195. See also Art 
Appreciation 

National Citizens Conference, 
357 

Natural science, 73, 158; field 
trips, 267. See also General 
Science 

New York City, new junior high 
schools, 93; card for physical 
examination record, 209; con- 
gestion in, 259; music mem- 
ory list, 195 

Ninth year work, begun early, 
65; blended with seventh and 
eight, 66 

Nutrition grades, 201, 204 

Oral English requirements, 97; 
in the Junior High School, 119 

Parents' attitude toward health 
work, 204 



422 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IDEA 



Parents, reports of pupils' work 
to, 318 

Physical Training, Chap. XII, 
199; aims in, 211; teachers 
of, 202, 207, 210. See also 
Health or Character Building 

Principal in self governing 
school, 367 

Prognostic Tests, Use of, Chap. 
II, 21 

Project Method, Chap. XIV, 
233; definition of, 238; find- 
ing suitable projects, 241; in 
socialized recitation, 256 

Promotions in elementary 
schools, 11; by subjects not 
advised, 51; of teacher with 
class, 53; in speed groups, 
49 

Psychological tests, 21, 34, 309. 
See also Prognostic Tests, 
Written Examinations 

Pupil Self-government, Chap. 
XIX, 327 

Pupil's point of view, 79; 
Report Cards, Chap. XVIII, 
310; talents awakened, 61; 
teaching by, 252 

Purposes of pupils' work estab- 
lished, 236 

Questions by pupils, 253 

Rate of speed in learning, 27,45 
Ratings, systems of, 313; by 

pupils of each other, 322 
Rationalization of work to 

pupils, 77 
Reasonableness of work to 

pupil, 84 
Reasons for organizing junior 

high schools, 8 



Recall, place of in examinations, 

292 
Recitations, teacher's part in. 

246 
Recognition Tests, Chap. XVII, 

284; in examinations, 293, 301 
Regents, New York State ex- 
aminations, 290, 303 
Relative Ratings, Chap. XVIII, 

310; more accurate than 

percents, 317 
Repeaters, 42, 46 
Report Cards, Chap. XVIII, 

310; used at Speyer School, 

324 

Salaries of Junior High School 

teachers, 10 
Salesmanship in teaching, 95 
School buildings, in field trips, 

266; city, plan of self-govern- 
ment, 327; congestion, 259; 

pupils, success in, forecast, 24; 

work vs. real work, 58, 260 
Science, See General, Natural or 

Social 
Scoring in school tests, 296 
Self-government of Pupils, 

Chap. XIX, 327; teacher's 

part in, 334 
Size of grades, 54 
Slower pupils, 41 
Social Science, Chap. X, 173; 

aims of, 182; field work in, 

271; in program of studies, 72 
Socialized Recitation, Chap. 

XV, 245; teacher of, 257, 

viewpoint, 253, 256 
Spanish. Sev Foreign Language 
Speed Grouping, Chap. Ill, 36; 

value of, 44; and re-grading f 

289 



INDEX 



423 



Special programs, 52 

Specialization of pupils gradual, 
51 

Speyer School, aims, 4, 19; 
joint administration of, 3; 
mathematics course devel- 
oped, 135; report cards, 324; 
"S" requirements, 214 

Study, Teaching Pupils to, 
Chap. XIII, 200; assigning 
home, 229, 231; experiments 
suggested, 223; means to se- 
cure, 226; time of, 221; will 
power and, 221 

Supervision, unity in junior and 
senior high schools, 87 

Survival in senior high school, 90 

Talents, discovering pupil's, 61 

Teaching Pupils to Study Alone, 
Chap. XIII, 220 

Teachers, assignment of, 54: 
college, at Speyer School, 3; 
demand for self-government 
of, 364; disloyalty of, 363, 
365; experiments in admin- 
istration by, 360; organiza- 
tions of, 355; Participation 
in Administration, Chap. XX, 
354; point of view of, 59-62; 
professional vs. artisan, 356; 
ratings given by, 311, 314; 
understanding children, 237; 
work in examinations, 285, 
298; work in training leaders, 
344 

Tests to give sequence of pupils, 
47 



Thomas, Prof. Calvin, quoted, 
143 

Thorndike, Prof. E. L., psycho- 
logical tests, 32; unselfish 
pleasures, 189 

Time, taken by teacher in reci- 
tations, 246; vs. achievement 
in gaining credits, 28, 50; 
weekly allowance to subjects, 
69, 75 

Town meetings in school work, 
374 

"Treasure Island" tests, 294 

Trigonometry in Junior High 
School, 131 

True or false tests, 294 

Uniform grade tests, 47; tests, 
table of dates for, 49 

Variety in junior high schools 

desirable, 6 
Vicarious experience through 

reading, 104 
Visits, teachers required to 

exchange, 89 
Vocational experience aimed at, 

63 

Weight of boys and girls, tables, 
205 

Written English, course of study 
in, 71. See Chap. VI, 96, 105 

Written Examinations, Chap. 
XVII, 284; frequency of, 290 
teacher's work in, 285, 298 
time in correcting, 285, 301 
unavoidable, 289 



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